$15,000 fine for non-permitted birthday party...

I saw something like this about farmers selling raw and unprocessed dairy products in NorCal. I don't quite understand the issue here. But then I think if you want to sell it and people want to buy it the government should stay the hell out of your business. I take that all the way to Mr. Carlin's "fucking legal, selling legal... how come selling fucking isn't legal?"

 

It's also important to note that the holding of events is a separate issue from the direct sale of produce. It's entirely possible that, as the video said, the county statue is at odds with state law. In which case I would expect a state court to strike down the law and throw out the fine, while upholding violation of the zoning laws.

 

Yeah I forgot to mention the BD party was just a BS issue thrown in to outrage you. I do think the core issue of not being able to sell your farm produce to the public without a state license is crap.

I need to watch the clip again to see the 5k, 15k discrepancy. I fell asleep before it ended.

 

I'm not going to watch the video, because propaganda, but I think there are pretty clear reasons why the state should play a role in ensuring proper procedures are followed in the sale and production of food. Same for regulating 'events'. The fact that one can find themselves on the wrong side of this type of government intrusion isn't exactly novel. There is injustice here if the people in the video were treated inconsistently compared to other event-holders and produce sellers, but I don't know that that is true.

 

Wait she had permit to sell? Then why would they fine her for selling? Or is the video wrong about why she's being fined?
--- merged: Aug 17, 2012 at 10:33 AM ---

Well I watched it but kind of dosed off after it became clear the fines weren't for holding a private birthday party.

I understand what you're saying about regulating food supply but really at times this goes too far and I often wonder if the big corporate farms aren't behind the laws keeping small farmers from selling their products.

 

KirStang will have to confirm this, but I'm pretty sure the US legal system says somewhere that "Ignorance of a law is no justification for violating it".

 

The whole "report" if you want to call it a report is pretty poorly done. It's giving you one side and not the other at all. I'm on my phone right now but I did a search earlier and many facts like prior warnings and the size of the paid events are not mentioned on the YouTube hit piece.

 

Urbanite here. I think that urbanites might get it better than someone who is used to having a lot of space to work with. I've been fortunate that none of my neighbors are party people, because if they were, the thinness of the walls that separate our units would mean that I'd get little peace and quiet. This is just another way of saying that there are some types of behaviors that individuals can engage in on their own property which are a nuisance to the community, or, you know, just because you own something doesn't mean you get to use it to shit on other people.

And so there has to be some sort of legal framework for differentiating between gatherings which amount to a nuisance to the community and gatherings which do not. And so it stands to reason that, if such a legal framework exists, then a person ought to be able to conform to it, or at least not be surprised when their inability to conform results in legal sanction. Maybe the ordinance is too restrictive. Maybe not. I don't know what these people were actually doing, but an 'organic tea garden' doesn't sound like much of a community nuisance to me.

It seems like these folks were warned in advance about their violations and they refused to change anything. They seem like the type of folks who thought "We aren't doing anything wrong, and, you know, fuck the government and shit, so whatever." and now that the government is responding how the government responds, they are crying fowl. I honestly don't know enough about either side to be able to form an opinion about who is right. In terms of government overreach, this is a little too provincial to get me worked up. I could see either side being the asshole, and I naturally tend to assume that both sides are the asshole, but that's just me.

 

I don't know. I last lived and still own a home on five acres in Oregon not far from the coast but basically miles from anywhere. I see more then one side here. Shit I couldn't cut trees on my own property without getting permission from the state forestry department. I didn't like it but I knew and all folks living around me knew the law. I know people who received fines for cutting trees... trees they owned.

If she was having these paid events- parties, wine tastings and pumpkin patch/carvings and she knew she needed a permit then I don't have a lot of sympathy for her. I read through your link and it sounds like she was playing cat and mouse and got caught... several times. Of course it's late and I'm tried, maybe I'm reading it wrong?

 

Trees I can understand, that can play all kinds of merry hell in the entire local (and not so local) ecosystem when you don't have oversight by someone looking at the whole picture. That falls under having the right to do as you please until it begins affecting others, nature is pretty much the ultimate "other" here... especially given the way it has a tendency to bite back pretty damn hard when you bother it too much.

The rest though... you've got to keep an eye out for things like traffic generation and whatnot but seriously at some point the permits do get out of hand.

 

Not sure you understand the scope of the number of trees we're dealing with, what the state considered "a tree" and so on but I do see your point. But when you want to clear some 1in. alders that crop up ever year and you need to go get a permit to do it it's a pain and cost burden. Or when the wind blows a tree into another tree and you need to take it down so it's not a danger it's just silly to make someone drive into town, stand in line and get a permit, drive home, wait a few days or weeks for someone to come out and say "yep, that there's a blow down go ahead and take it down." But that's the law and unless you want a fine you do it. Another one that always got me was fire permits. All my neighbors and I burned paper trash and yard clippings. The state would begin "fire season" and all burning would either be very restricted or banned. Sounds actually pretty reasonable, right? Well the state used to do it on a statewide level so when eastern Oregon would dry out in May the entire state would be closed down to burning. Never mind that we were 250 miles west of the problem area, literally in a rain forest. A rain forest where you couldn't start a fire with napalm. But that's the way it was and forestry would have trucks driving around, in the pouring rain, looking for people burning trash and issuing fines. It changed a few years back and now they do it by regions. So some things improve and you can change the government.
--- merged: Aug 18, 2012 at 10:43 AM ---

Well not only does it sound like she was doing all kinds of various events but she was told, repeatedly "you need a permit." I read through the link and it sounds like she had a web site and told them "no that's a not a real web site." They did some research and found out it was a real ad web site. Several items were brought up where she did something then told them "I didn't do that." No better way to piss off some low level bureaucrat then keep lying to them. You're just asking for them to not work with you. That's true with just about any occupation. I don't care if you work for a store, wait tables or sell cars. If someone comes in and lies to you about something they're less likely to be on your side. If you trade in your car and tell them "I'm the one and only owner and it's never been wrecked" and they do a title search and find out 4 people have owned the car and it's been wrecked 5 times they might not out and out call you a liar but your ability to negotiate the best possible trade in deal just went out the window. I know many officers that returned to the station with stories of "I was just going to give this person a warning and send them on their way. Then they started lying to me so I did a complete vehicle inspection and fined them failing to come to a complete stop and 3 other things." No one likes to be lied to.