The owner of Fins Up Aviation says he has a very fowl taste in his mouth after dealing with the city over what he's calling a helipad permitting 'debacle' to land inside the city limits during F-1.　

John Lawson says he is pulling all plans to land at the Mopac helipad after residents were led to believe by the city's Aviation Director, Jim Smith, that he had no knowledge Lawson had spent 7 months jumping through hoops to ge the permit. He says after hearing concerns, he offered to drop all Friday flights if he could operate until 9 o'clock on Sunday in order to get F-1 fans off the track after the race, "His response was, well if you work it out with the building condominium association, which apparantly had no right to write a letter to the Mayor, and if you work it out with the neighborhood.  So, he left it up to me to  go negotiate with the neighborhood to determine whether or not he would reconsider my permit.  So basically, the neighborhood made that decision for me."

Lawson says he made the business decision, since 60-percent of his clients wouldn't be able to use the Mopac helipad, to move all of his operations to the Dryden Airport east of Austin. He says he has records that show the Austin Aviation Department has issued temporary helipad permits within days of the request to operate as late as 10 p-m, and wants to know why he was treated differently.