Virginia vintners taste the police state

Washington Examiner ^ | 12 August 2010

[Lorianne]

While the Obama administration is busy eviscerating private property rights at the federal level, Republican-controlled Fauquier County, Va., has decided to follow suit in its own way. Fauquier's Board of Supervisors recently passed a winery ordinance that tramples private property rights and some fundamental civil liberties.

Most of the wineries are mom and pop operations. Some, though, have been more creative in marketing, employing more people, and generating revenue. The county thinks such success must be punished.

At the center of all this is the county zoning administrator, a bureaucratic czar named Kimberley Johnson, whose bullying and heavy-handed enforcement tactics have resulted in calls for her dismissal by county farmers and residents. Johnson was recently the subject of a citizen-farmer "pitchfork protest" in a matter in which she fined one farmer for conducting a pumpkin carving and and a birthday party for eight little girls without the proper permit.

The winery ordinance is Obama-esque, passed under the pretext that it protects the health, safety and welfare of the public. It forces wineries to close at 6 p.m. and prohibits sale of food -- something that goes quite safely with a taste of wine -- unless the wineries obtain special permits from the zoning administrator.

The ordinance lists prohibited winery activities such as hot air balloon rides, farmers' markets, and mini-golf, which assuredly threaten the health, safety and welfare of the public, right?

Among the prohibited activities, the ordinance includes anything else determined by the zoning administrator "to be similar in nature or in impact to" the listed activities. That's the equivalent allowing police officers to ticket drivers for nearly anything they wish.

[LouAvul]

I imagined there was a whole lot more to the story than the alarmists would reveal.

[generally]

I appreciate hearing the other side of this.

I would like to see a good solution that maximizes liberty for all. I would like to see the real issues on the table. If this is not about kids’ birthday parties and pumpkins, then I’d like more honesty about what the real issues are.

I know about the hazmat suits they use to spray vineyards. I would not want those toxins near me or my family or my livestock and pets.

[vbmoneyspender]

I imagined there was a whole lot more to the story than the alarmists would reveal.

Yes, because when it comes to properly judging the respective merits of various human activities there is no more capable instrument than a government bureaucracy. Just ask those 8 little girls whose birthday party was ticketed.

[vbmoneyspender]

Virginia Farmer Holds Party for Little Girls, Sells Tomatoes and Yarn, Gets Slammed With $15,000 in Fines

Are you denying this happened or just saying that fining people who hold parties for little girls is acceptable collateral damage in the regulatory war on businesses you don't like?

[vbmoneyspender]

5. Perhaps the single most offensive allegation by Ms. Johnson is that the farm's Facebook page "includes photographs of a child's birthday party that was held" on January 22. Ms. Johnson believes that a party of eight 10-year-old girls on a family farm is subject to her regulatory purview and is cause to threaten county citizens with fines up to $5,000.

Ms. Johnson has shut down, or attempted to shut down, political fundraisers on residential farms for lack of a permit. The farm owners could have sued her and the county under 42 U.S.C. 1983 for violating constitutional rights under the color of state law.

Ms. Johnson, the menace, wasn't fired or sued for her imperious view of her power versus her limited view of people's rights on private property. That's a shame. Now, she's attempting to fine a county resident for holding Boy Scout jamborees on his property.

[LouAvul]

Yes, because when it comes to properly judging the respective merits of various human activities there is no more capable instrument than a government bureaucracy. Just ask those 8 little girls whose birthday party was ticketed.

Try not to be so obtuse. If these vintners are in fact polluting the environment, if they are in fact doing what the earlier poster (who, by the way, happens to live there. Do you?) claims, then yes, government needs to shut them down.

Government has a legitimate function, viz. to enforce the law. You come across as completely antigovernment and thus, as a kook.

To use your logic, just because a messycan drug cartel operating out of Arizona happens to host a birthday party for children does not make them exempt from obeying the law.

[vbmoneyspender]

Your mindset exemplifies why our country is in trouble. Someone holds a party for little girls and gets fined for it and your reaction is to defend the bureaucrat that issued the fine.

Your defense of the bureaucrat is disgraceful and you should be ashamed of yourself.

Aside from that, exactly what law applies to prevent someone from hosting a party for little girls? And even if such a law existed, which I doubt, I would hope any right-thinking conservative would feel completely justified in disobeying such a law. The law is not my God, but it is apparently yours.

[generally]

Neither.

I was expressing my appreciation for hearing the other side of the story. I dislike it when liberals and the MSM only tell the part of the story that favors their narrative. And I like to hear the part that we conservatives may be tempted to leave out as well.

I’m in favor of freedom to do what you like on your property. I’m also in favor of some sort of reasonable limits. Most of us would not like it if the neighbors had rusted-out cars covering their front lawn or if they held noisy all-night parties every night that prevented us from sleeping.

When the liberals trot out the sad-eyed children and say “It’s for the children” regarding every issue they are pushing, I find that disingenuous. I just want to make sure that we are not guilty of the same thing.

If I lived closer I would have considered joining the pitchfork protest. But I would hate to jump on such a bandwagon and then find out that I’d been suckered into something because they were only telling me the part of the story that generated sympathy for their side. I would not want to be used as a prop in something that was not a matter of principle but was only staged to line their pockets. And yes, I’m very much a capitalist, but I dislike it severely when someone pretends that something is “for the principle of it” when it is really all about money.

I like honesty. I like to hear the whole truth, not just the part that furthers someone’s particular agenda.

[vbmoneyspender]

Most of us would not like it if the neighbors had rusted-out cars covering their front lawn or if they held noisy all-night parties every night that prevented us from sleeping.

That's not what happened, is it? I posted the picture of the little girls at the party. Did you see the picture?

[marron]

I think its plain that most people would gladly give up their freedom in exchange for the right to mind their neighbor’s business.

For some people, freedom is an intolerable burden. When that number reaches critical mass, freedom is gone.

When your kid can be fined for selling lemonade in front of your house, and when you can be fined for having a kids’ birthday party, and when you can be jailed for running over a field mouse with your tractor, you no longer live in a free country.

Most people don’t miss it.

[Triple]

“If these vintners are in fact polluting the environment” - LA

Then they should be ticketed for pollution. What on earth does this have to do with a small birthday party for little girls?

They fined them for a BIRTHDAY PARTY!

(I wonder if the ordinance was passed by a small city council of @8 people, that we be my guess)

[AnalogReigns]

Fauquier County, VA, is pretty much the heart of Virginia’s “hunt country” the seat of the super wealthy estate holders from DC. The Kennedy’s were regulars out there (Middleburg, VA is on the Fauquier/Loudoun border) the owners of the Washington Post, and basically, all the biggest money’d folk from DC. Hence “Republican” in the Rockefeller-RINO way... who will do anything to “protect” their ritzy horse farms.

It’s really very beautiful countryside, but I’m not surprised at snotty local bureaucrats of any political party...protecting their super-rich patrons.

Even the “protect the battlefield!” movement of about 15 years ago....that blocked a Disney historic park near there, was nothing but the rich horsey set who drummed up emotional support from around the country. The proposed park was over 10 miles from the Manassas battlefield (and EVERYTHING in Northern Virginia is 10 miles from SOME battlefield).

The real issue there was the horse-country folk didn’t want the traffic of the little people near their estates.