His drone caught the attention of the New York Police Department, which tossed him in jail for five hours.

Three months later, he became the first and so far only person to have his manned aircraft license suspended by the Federal Aviation Administration for flying a drone.

"I was right there on the beach over private property—at the same time, they had their hot dog thing going on a block or two away," Quinones, a cofounder of the New York City-based aerial photography company SkyCamUSA, told me. "I did not fly over their hot dog thing or anywhere near it. But because it was the Fourth of July and a whole hierarchy of the NYPD was there, they overreacted and over responded. They put me in handcuffs, took me away, took my drone."

Quinones was never charged and New York City eventually threw out a ticket they gave him for the incident.