RALEIGH — The strange tale of the Currituck Beach Lighthouse has just gotten stranger.

You may have heard about this story, which contained such disparate elements as political intrigue, privatization, and historic preservation. Leaders in Currituck County, in the far northeastern corner of North Carolina, battled for years with a conservation group based in Dare County over the ownership and control of the historic lighthouse. The local congressman, Rep. Walter Jones (R-3rd District), came in on the side of county officials. Other prominent politicians and citizens weighed in on behalf of the nonprofit, which eventually gained control of the facility.

But the dispute continues. Currituck officials now say that because the lighthouse was privatized, it comes under the jurisdiction of a local development ordinance and that its owners aren’t responding to potential code violations. They’re going to be fined $100 a day until they comply, says the county. While the argument continues to attract attention within Currituck, I think the issue has statewide significance because of the precedent it may set for the potential privatization of government-owned assets and whether well-intended regulations may block public-spirited volunteers and nonprofits from addressing needs in their communities.

Let’s peel off the various layers of this tear-inducing controversy. First, the battle over control of the Currituck Beach Lighthouse began back in 2000, when Congress passed a law at the request of the U.S. Coast Guard to create an orderly process for giving away federally managed lighthouse properties to local entities better situated to own and operate them. The Dare group, Outer Banks Conservationists (OBC), had already worked on the Currituck lighthouse’s restoration for two decades and had a lease on the property from the Coast Guard. But Currituck County officials said they were the best entity to accept responsibility for the facility, partly because of what they argued was a need to coordinate the marketing and use of the facility with other county attractions.

Another issue that Currituck officials brought up at the time was the the lighthouse might end up running afoul of the county’s ordinance because of its lack of restrooms and adequate parking. As a federally owned property, the lighthouse had been exempt. As a county property, presumably, it would have retained all or some of this exemption. But as a private entity, county officials warned, it would have to comply. And now, that is precisely what’s happening.

The insular nature of the Currituck lighthouse debate does not lend itself to easy interpretation by outsiders. My friend John Miller of National Review wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal on the controversy that emphasized the privatization angle. But this doesn’t answer the question of how local land-use regulations should be applied, or not applied, to the lighthouse.

Frankly, I don’t see the logic of either side’s position. I don’t understand why the nonprofit apparently isn’t even responding to the county’s letters. Are emotions still so raw from the original dispute that common sense is no longer possible to exercise? On the other hand, what is the true public purpose behind applying the restroom and parking regulations to the lighthouse? If the regulations were justified, that surely county ownership of the property wouldn’t have eliminated the need to add the requisite facilities, regardless of the legalities. On the other hand, since the lighthouse had been attracting tens of thousands of visitors a year while exempt from the regulations, the public doesn’t seem to be deterred by the lack of amenities.

One side looks like it’s grandstanding and enforcing needless rules. The other side looks like it’s needlessly thumbing its nose at a duly elected local government. Who blinks first?

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.