Communists overwhelm Florida’s defenses

[Olsonist]

These liberals are coming for your guns next.

https://www.npr.org/2019/07/02/738131948/after-6-year-battle-florida-couple-wins-the-right-to-plant-veggies-in-front-yard

 

[Mrleft8]

Hell...... Half the people in that county that sit on their front porches watching their neighbors are vegetables themselves.....

 

[Clove Hitch]

Seems like something Dabs HOA would have done

 

[Sol Rosenberg]

Try Coral Gables if you think Miami Shores is bad. 

I’m quite happy to leave that shit behind and live in an unincorporated part of the poorest county in the state. I do what I want and the county can’t afford enough inspectors to hassle me.

Fuck kale. Ruby red grapefruit is my game. 

 

[Mrleft8]

Try Coral Gables if you think Miami Shores is bad. 

I’m quite happy to leave that shit behind and live in an unincorporated part of the poorest county in the state. I do what I want and the county can’t afford enough inspectors to hassle me.

Fuck kale. Ruby red grapefruit is my game. 

Too bad the Asian dragon (AKA Citrus greening) is going to wipe out our trees in the next 10 years.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Try Coral Gables if you think Miami Shores is bad. 

I grew up there and he's not kidding. The Tacky Police in the Gables regulate what colors you can paint the INSIDE of your home.

These liberals are coming for your guns next.

https://www.npr.org/2019/07/02/738131948/after-6-year-battle-florida-couple-wins-the-right-to-plant-veggies-in-front-yard

But then a zoning ordinance was tightened to forbid vegetables in the front yard on the grounds that they were unsightly. A daily $50 fine went into effect, so Ricketts pulled up her garden.

And she lawyered up. She reached out to Institute for Justice, a national advocacy group that fights for property rights, among other issues.

It took six years, but they won. An appeals court had ruled against Ricketts, but the Florida Legislature passed a bill protecting vegetable gardens, and last week Gov. Ron DeSantis signed it into law.

As I often do, I support the nutjob libertarians at ij.org. I've mentioned my communist/libertarian proclivities on this case in other threads. Specifically,

In possibly related news,

FL Appeals Court Upholds Vegetable Garden Ban
 

Hermine Ricketts and her husband, Laurence Carroll, had kept a nicely manicured vegetable garden in their front yard for nearly two decades. Then, in 2013, Miami Shores adopted an ordinance that banned vegetable gardens, and vowed to fine violators each day they failed to comply with the law.

The couple sued, arguing, as a local CBS affiliate put it, "that the ordinance ran afoul of the Florida Constitution, including that it violated their privacy rights and their right to acquire, possess and protect property."

Last year, a Florida state court upheld the vegetable-garden ban, on grounds that aesthetic reasons—the city thinks vegetables are ugly—are sufficient justification for a city to ban vegetable gardens.

Last week—a few days after my Seattle talk—a state appeals court ruled in the matter. The court's words are, at first, buoying. The decision begins with an non-exhaustive list of all the things Miami Shores residents may have in their front yards: "garden gnomes, pink flamingos and trolls.... boats and jet skis.... whatever trees, flowers, shrubs, grasses, fruits and berries they desire."

Everything save for vegetables.

The court's answer: elect different people if you don't like zoning rules.

It's sometimes a good answer. It's the kind of answer Robert Bork would consistently give, so I guess that's bad. OTOH, it can be considered a good answer with respect to tools.

In this case, though I'm sympathetic to the gardeners, I think the court got it right. If "that's too ugly" isn't a valid zoning concern, the Tacky Police are going to be extremely upset. That's exactly why we have zoning rules in the first place.

The other answer, in addition to electing people who are OK with ugly veggies, is to simply flee...

And earlier this year, when we went with the Bork approach...

The Gardenshine State

 

[Ease the sheet.]

I grew up there and he's not kidding. The Tacky Police in the Gables regulate what colors you can paint the INSIDE of your home.

Surely there's a 2nd amendment solution?

 

[Jules]

Hey!  She was growing Chinese cabbage and Swiss chard!  We have to stop ALL illegal immigration!

 

[billy backstay]

What do "Communists" have to do with this??????????????

 

[Amati]

What do "Communists" have to do with this??????????????

It used to be everything.... <_< ....all the time......in the 50’s, at least............bedfellows.......under rocks..........in Studio 54..........

 

[Olsonist]

What do "Communists" have to do with this??????????????

I was just making a joke. Everyone complains about California and Berkeley. Police in FLA telling people they can’t grow veggies in the front yard just seems weird. That it would take a state law to change this seems weirder.

 

[d'ranger]

It used to be everything.... <_< ....all the time......in the 50’s, at least............bedfellows.......under rocks..........in Studio 54..........

and behind every Bush.  Commies loved them shrubberies.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

I was just making a joke. Everyone complains about California and Berkeley. Police in FLA telling people they can’t grow veggies in the front yard just seems weird. That it would take a state law to change this seems weirder.

There was a YUGE spike in agricultural activity on Thursday.

(The fun kinds of fireworks are mostly banned here, unless you sign a form swearing that you're just scaring birds for agricultural reasons.)

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Everyone complains about California and Berkeley. Police in FLA telling people they can’t grow veggies in the front yard just seems weird. That it would take a state law to change this seems weirder.

Zoning isn't a thing out in California?

I explained the weirdness in 2017, reposted above.

Koch-$pon$ored Communism Clarifies
 

The Florida legislature has passed a bill shielding vegetable gardens from local prohibitions. "After nearly six years of fighting…I will once again be able to legally plant vegetables in my front yard," Ricketts said in a statement. "I'm grateful to the Legislature and the governor for standing up to protect my freedom to grow healthy food on my own property."

The Institute for Justice filed a lawsuit on Ricketts' behalf in 2013. Florida's Third District Court of Appeals upheld the ban, and the state's Supreme Court declined to hear the case. So Ricketts and the institute lobbied the legislature, and it passed a law effectively invalidating the local ordinance. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed it last week.

How were city commissioners able to pass the rule in the first place, much less get it past an appeals court? It was billed as a zoning regulation, which cities have near-unlimited power in implementing. The Florida League of Cities opposed Ricketts' efforts until the end, arguing that code enforcement is an essential tool for maintaining a town's aesthetic. They also didn't like the idea of a state government preempting measures adopted at the local level.

Punta Gorda's historic district has an aesthetic. The message it conveys seems to be "this was what we could afford!" It's charming.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Iguanas Rule

 

...

“We’ve called the property management company who oversees the home, Charlotte County Code Enforcement, the health and environmental department and the bank to complain about the house being overrun with iguanas.”

“More importantly, this house is dangerous,” Kathy added. “It has an in-ground pool with water in it and no pool cage around it. The screens are ripped. We are so afraid a child or teenager might go back there and drown.”

Every few months, Kathy notified the property management company of issues with the house. She called Bank of America, the mortgage holder, to complain about the dilapidated roof, the dangling soffit and black mold all over the outside walls.

“The only thing that has been done after every complaint is the yard is mowed,” Kathy said.

...

But the lawn is mowed from time to time and for some reason the owners have continued to pay the property taxes, though they're losing the home in foreclosure at the moment.

I'd be frustrated if I were Kathy too.
 

According to county documents, beginning in 2013, Charlotte County cited the property owner for tall grass, outdoor storage, the pool, roof and ripped screening. Two more liens came in 2014, and more in 2017, 2018 and 2019. To date, there’s about $10,000 in fines associated with the property.

Horton said aside from the fines and liens, there’s not much more that could be done by his department.

“For us, it’s a double-edged sword because the property taxes are paid every year on this house,” Horton said. “It’s a real catch-22 because of the way the private property laws are written. We can’t go on the property and drill a hole in the pool to empty it. We can’t damage private property. Even if we just removed the water by hand, it would fill up again and rather quickly.”

The county says they can only intervene in a dangerous situation. Funny, lots of my friends have fencing around their pools because not doing so is dangerous.

So what are the code enforcement folks busy doing instead? Funny I should ask. This picture turned one year old today.

It would have been done a bit sooner, but we had to complete the second of two required termite treatments before the permit was finally cleared. They pumped gallons of who-knows-what into the soil around the concrete pad. If you're wondering whether the termites eat steel or concrete, you're not alone.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

I was just making a joke. Everyone complains about California and Berkeley. Police in FLA telling people they can’t grow veggies in the front yard just seems weird. That it would take a state law to change this seems weirder.

It was unique but soon Illinois may become the second state to protect the freedom to grow a vegetable garden in your yard.
 

Late last week, Rep. Sonya Harper filed the Illinois Vegetable Garden Protection Act (HB 633), which would preserve and protect the right of all Illinoisans to “cultivate vegetable gardens on their own property, or on the property of another with the permission of the owner, in any county, municipality, or other political subdivision of this state.” The Act would protect the right to grow vegetables, as well as “herbs, fruits, flowers, pollinator plants, leafy greens, or other edible plants.” For many Illinoisans, this reform has been a long-time coming, as similar measures have come close to passage in prior sessions. A companion bill in the Senate will also be introduced. 

...

If passed, Illinois would become a national leader in the local food movement, becoming just the second state to provide express protection for the right to grow one’s own food. In 2019, Florida enacted the nation’s first statewide Vegetable Garden Protection Act, which sprouted from a years-long legal battle the Institute for Justice fought on behalf of a Miami Shores couple that was forced to uproot their 17-year old vegetable garden, after the city banned vegetable gardens in front yards. The Florida and Illinois legislative reforms are part of IJ’s National Food Freedom Initiative, which promotes the ability of individuals to produce, procure and consume the foods of their choice.

“This bill strips local governments of the power to impose HOA-style prohibitions on an act of self-sufficiency in which humans have been engaged for thousands of years,” said IJ Nutjob Ari Bargil. ...

 

[justsomeguy!]

Somebody overwhelmed a Florida water utility briefly.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55989843

 

[Raz'r]

Boss of mine had a place near Destin, had a planning session there incl golf. When he left early to get us signed in we planted a plastic flamingo in the front. He kinda freaked out on his return AND he got some nasty letters from the HOA. I think it was up for 6 hours, tops.

 

[Pipe Dream]

land of the free.....