Arizona's one-mile drone ban around ticketed events is in force. It reaches commercial flights, not hobby ones, and the schools rule is the reverse.

The word that decides who this touches is civil. The statute defines a civil unmanned aircraft as one operated for any purpose other than strictly for hobby or recreational purposes, including commercial purposes, or in furtherance of or incidental to any business or media service or agency. A recreational flyer is therefore not inside the event subsection at all. A Part 107 pilot shooting real estate a half mile from a ballgame is. That is the opposite shape from California's AB 2113, still on the governor's desk, which draws a 400-foot line around a similar class of events and applies to everyone. Arizona's ring is thirteen times wider and applies to the operators most likely to be working nearby.

Chapter 236 goes the other way. Its new subsection makes it unlawful to use an unmanned aircraft to intentionally photograph or loiter two hundred feet or less above a property when the operator is flying for hobby or recreational purposes and knows or reasonably should know that all four of the following apply: the property is not zoned for residential use; it is used to instruct students in kindergarten through grade twelve and school is in session or school activities are occurring; the owner or person in control has posted reasonable notice prohibiting entry on or over the property; and a peace officer, the owner, or a person in control has notified the operator of the prohibition and made a reasonable request to leave. A violation is a class 3 misdemeanor. The Senate fact sheet described a 100-foot rule with a class 1 penalty; the enacted text is 200 feet above, recreational operators only, four conditions, class 3.

Two features of the existing section carry over and matter. First, 13-3729 already states that it does not apply to a person or entity that is authorized or allowed by the Federal Aviation Administration to operate an unmanned aircraft system, if the operation complies with the authorization or with FAA rules. Whether a routine Part 107 flight under the general operating rules is an operation allowed by the FAA for this purpose, or whether the exemption means a specific waiver or authorization, is not something the text resolves, and Drone Authority is not offering a legal opinion on it. Second, the section's preemption clause still voids most city, town, and county drone ordinances, so these are the statewide rules and there is no local layer to check on top of them except the park takeoff and landing exceptions the statute preserves.