In what stargazers are calling a “bold step toward celestial stewardship,” the Bourbon County Commission voted Monday to approve a new rural dark-sky ordinance so strict that residents will no longer be allowed to use vehicle headlights at night anywhere in the county.

The ordinance, passed after what attendees described as “an unusually confident discussion of lumens,” sets maximum allowable outdoor light levels at just below “a jar of lightning bugs with a towel draped over it.” Standard vehicle headlights, porch lights, flashlights, and “overly ambitious glow sticks” are now considered unlawful light pollution.

Commissioners said the new rules are necessary to preserve residents’ God-given right to see every star in the heavens, including several “fainter ones that have historically been none of our business.”

“We have lost touch with the natural darkness that is a vital part of Bourbon County’s attractive quality of life,” one commissioner said while holding a printed chart no one could read because the room lights had already been turned off in anticipation of the vote. “If people need to travel after sunset, they need to plan ahead, drive slower, and perhaps ask themselves whether the trip is really worth disrupting Orion.”

Under the new ordinance, drivers must now choose from a list of county-approved nighttime navigation methods, including moonlight, memory, passenger-operated lantern shielding, and “quiet instinct.” The commission is also expected to publish a voluntary map of roads considered “less ditch-prone.”

Reaction from the public has been swift. Farmers raised questions about operating equipment before sunrise, parents wondered how evening activities would work, and several teenagers were reportedly delighted to learn the county had made it illegal for school buses to pick them up before sunrise.

At the same meeting, commissioners tabled a related proposal that would require all porch lights to be replaced with “period-appropriate candles in shaded mason jars.” That measure is expected to return next month after further study by the county’s newly formed Subcommittee on Responsible Gloom.

At press time, officials were considering a minor amendment allowing one headlight per vehicle, provided it is pointed mostly downward and described in county records as “more of a suggestion than a beam.”