The secret to surviving a bad economy if you are a local government is to “ramp up” code enforcement.

Property values are down, which means that real estate tax revenues are down as well. Of course, most cities don’t re-appraise the property values, but any person who receives an unfair tax bill will have redress with the city and will probably win since it’s a known fact that property values have plummeted in the last few years.

So, when municipalities discover they have budget shortfalls as a result, they go into hyper mode about enforcing codes. Here are some examples that have been highlighted recently:

1. In Ballwin, Missouri, a homeowner can be fined for having children’s toys in the yard.
2. Even though the typical American lawn is wasted space at a time when we are concerned about the environment and having enough to eat, homeowners in Orlando can get fined and have their garden removed if it is in the front yard.
3. People are typically into environmentalism until it means that they might see large planters and clothes lines from the street. The horror!

In Huntington, West Virginia, they are attempting to take it a step further by not only ramping up the enforcement of their current codes, but also making more things illegal. They are set to vote on a new ordinance. (Emphasis added)

The ordinance also prohibits building materials being stored outdoors unless they are for a permitted project on the property. Penalties include fines of up to $500, up to 30 days in jail or both.

The ordinance is just one part of Williams’ multi-pronged approach to improving the quality of life in Huntington by ramping up code enforcement. The council also will vote on a resolution Monday that authorizes Williams to apply for a federal Justice Assistance Grant in the amount of $28,000 to hire a compliance officer. The position is proposed to fall under the Police Department, not the Division of Inspections and Compliance.

Naturally, this is phrased as a “quality of life” measure rather than a revenue generating measure. Safety! Safety!

If you click the link and continue to read, you will also find out that the city is attemping to get a federal grant in order to pay the salary of a new code enforcement officer that would be needed. That’s practically akin to acknowledging that the city doesn’t have enough money to pay their own officer. Yet, they want people to believe that these new measures are about quality of life and safety.

Additionally, the city of Huntington is looking into having the ability to issue on the spot citations, rather than giving a warning period for compliance.

Williams also has indicated that he will seek the ability to issue on-the-spot citations through the Municipal Home Rule Pilot Program, Williams said. Property owners now have a 10-day warning period to clean up their messes before they receive a citation. Charleston was granted the authority to issue on-the-spot citations as part of its home rule plan and it has worked well, Williams said.

Now is probably a good time to go ahead and read your city’s municipal codes. If something like this hasn’t begun to happen in your town, it’s probably only a matter of time. You never know when they’ll start enforcing these things, and you don’t want to have to rely on the ignorance claim.

So, what is the secret to surviving this bad economy? Have a steady stream of revenue at your fingertips in the form of taxes. When that begins to fail, make sure someone gets punished and literally has to pay.

Welcome to another episode of Technically, That’s Illegal.

The episode begins with a discussion about jury duty and the possibility of requiring an intelligence test to participate.

Then, I discuss a bill that proposes to outlaw anonymous posts on the internet.

The grumpy neighbor award this week goes to a code enforcement officer who went overboard in his citation of an elderly man for “a small stain” on the side of his house.

The safety segement this week talks about the fact that hand sanitizer is flammable.

Links:

Breathtaking level of ignorance on juries

A bill proposes to make anonymous internet posts illegal

Code enforcement is probably worse than any grumpy neighbor you might have (Sorry, this article has been taken down, but you can listen to the podcast to hear all about what it said)

Hand sanitizer catches fire, burns girl

Should we ban eating in restaurants?

Sanitization or Stupidization by Karen De Coster

Liberty in Exile podcast

Drying your hands is important

A summary of my jury duty experience in 2010

I’m not a flag waver, myself. Mostly that’s because the flag is too closely aligned with endorsement of the US government. At this point in my life, I consider myself patriotic, but not in the sense of blind obedience to the government.

However, it should be a person’s right to be able to fly a flag if they choose. They should be able to fly the US Flag, the Cherokee Nation flag, a Nascar flag, or whatever they want on their own property or at a business that they own.

A town in New Jersey has proposed banning flags.

The general sign regulations include references to flags, banners, and pennants. While they’re at it, they’re trying to ban “The ordinance would also ban signs affixed to the exterior of a window or glass, neon signs framing windows, and window and door signs that exceed 15% of the glass area.”

After all of that, it is unclear to me which signs would be allowed. They plan to vote on this Feb. 20th.

On this blog, I typically only write about legal issues relating to the United States of America. In this case, I am going to branch out a bit. You see, USA lawmakers are following in the footsteps of Denmark in several ways.

A year ago, Denmark enacted a “fat tax,” which attempted to “engineer a healthier populace” by heavily taxing saturated fat and sugar, thereby discouraging their use.

According to the Danish Ministry of Taxation the country’s tax on unhealthy, high-fat products had driven up prices and put jobs at risk.

The Wall Street Journal describes it this way (emphasis added):

Danish lawmakers have killed a controversial “fat tax” one year after its implementation, after finding its negative effect on the economy and the strain it has put on small businesses far outweigh the health benefits.

Besides the issues mentioned in the above quotes about how taxes put a strain on the economy, there are several other obvious problems with this.

Which government agencies/programs are being instituted or beefed up with this new tax money? Is the money simply going to balance the current budget expenses? If the government becomes reliant upon this source of revenue, they are automatically not going to achieve their end of having a healthier populace. You see, the government will come to NEED and depend upon that money. Therefore, if they actually achieve what they say they want (for people to stop consuming saturated fat), they will need to come up with some other tax in order to continue their spending habits.

Then there’s the whole issue of saturated fat in the first place. It’s not as if the science is settled on the fact that it’s unhealthy. These taxes enacted in Denmark and other places have the underlying assumption that saturated fat is terrible for your health. If fat is just plain terrible, why does high fat dairy lower your risk of a heart attack? I recommend you browse around the food renegade site for more information, but a nice debunking of the saturated fat myth can be found here.

Well, what about the sugar? They taxed the sugar, too. Well, I agree that sugar is terrible for your health. There’s really nothing redeeming about it, other than its taste. However, see my above reasoning about why I don’t believe taxing it is the correct thing to do. Then, add to that the fact that I believe people should be allowed to indulge if they choose.

Now, let’s bring this back to the USA. I have documented a number of cases that lead me to believe we are going down the path toward these kinds of taxes on a nationwide level.

Federal guidelines limiting school lunches to 850 calories

NYC’s ban on large sugary drinks

FDA’s plan to gradually reduce salt content in foods

Of course, there are more…but they haven’t been documented here yet. I’ll get to them eventually, but there’s never a shortage of things to write about.

Just remember that the next time government tries to get involved in your food choices that they generally manage to make things worse.

Back in March, I told you about a new city ordinance in Philadelphia that made it illegal for people to feed the homeless in public (for most locations). At that time, I said that it would hurt those in need. Of course, anyone with half of a brain could realize that.

Today, I found out that a Philadelphia woman is currently facing fines of $600 per day for feeding children in her neighborhood. She is doing this in her own yard. She refuses to get the required variance (at a cost of around $1,000) and plans to continue to feed the children.

Note: It is unclear whether this is supposedly a violation of the original ordinance I wrote about or a different issue. It seems like it is a different issue since the original post was in relation to public lands like parks. However, the city of Philadelphia must have a real problem with benevolence for this issue to have made the news again with a different twist.

Also, shame on the neighbor that called this in. What have we come to? We’re more concerned about our neighborhoods being quiet than making sure people have enough food?

I don’t agree with drunk driving. I’ve read arguments to legalize drunk driving, but that’s not necessarily my position…yet. Unlike some other regulations that I discuss, drunk driving has the potential to seriously harm another individual. However, the laws raise enough concerns for me to be troubled by them.

Drunk driving laws lead to witch hunts. Of course, I am referring to police check points. If you have to stop every single car, question the people therein, and administer random breath tests in order to tell whether people are too drunk to be operating a vehicle, maybe the law is too strict. After all, they were enacted for safety purposes. So, if the person isn’t causing a disturbance or driving poorly, maybe they aren’t dangerous after all.

They say that a blood alcohol level of 0.08% can affect your reasoning, depth perception, and peripheral vision. However, just a few decades ago, the legal limit was 0.15%. Either way, did you know you can get cited for DUI if you are under the legal limit IF an officer claims that you showed “signs of impairment?” That’s pretty subjective. However, there is no provision for NOT getting a ticket if you are over the limit and DON’T show signs of impairment.

I don’t point all of this out because I support drunk driving. I just definitely don’t support unfair laws. There are many over the top instances of DUI citations. I’m reading a book right now written by an attorney, Michael D. Cicchini, that gives examples of people getting DUI citations for turning the key halfway on (accessory mode) and sleeping in the car.

The most recent example to make the national news is that of an Alaska man who was given a DUI for floating down a river on a raft while intoxicated. I suppose this was for his own good, because it can’t be construed as being a public safety issue.

(The original article I linked to about this story is no longer available. Efforts have been made to find a replacement, but the details may not always be the same in cases like this.)

Here are some pictures of my neighbors’ back driveway (facing the alley):

a pile of mulch, covered with a tarp

some carpet, part of a mattress, etc

Here’s the story: A few days ago, my neighbors were issued a warning for a city code violation. The warning read that they were in violation of cide code 6.0 22 1994. Here is a picture of the notice:

Maybe I’m bad at reading handwriting, but that code violation seems to start with a six. Even though all of the codes are online, I cannot find one with that particular number. I even have a printed copy of the codes, and I don’t see that number. In fact, the codes online do not even contain a section 6. It literally skips from section 5 to section 7. Take a look:

So, instead of going by the number, let’s go by the supposed infraction — permitting the accumulation of waste or recyclables. When I search the code for that, I find that section 95.01 of Title I indicates the following:

If any person maintains, uses, creates, causes, places, deposits, leaves or permits a nuisance to be or remain on any property, that person violates this section. The following list includes, but does not limit, the conditions constituting a nuisance under this section:

(1)     Accumulations of rubbish, trash, refuse, junk and other  abandoned materials, metals and lumber;

(2)     Harborage of rats, mice, snakes and other vermin;

(3)     Disagreeable or obnoxious odors and stenches, as well as the conditions, substances or other causes which give rise to the emission or generation of those odors and stenches;

(4)     Carcasses of animals or fowls, not disposed of within a reasonable time after death;

(5)     Buildings, structures or other places and locations where any violation of federal, state or city law is conducted, maintained or performed; and

(6)     Accumulations of stagnant water.

So, now I refer you back to the two pictures at the beginning of this post. One is a picture of a pile of mulch. I certainly would not call this an accumulation of ”rubbish, trash, refuse, junk and other abandoned materials, metals and lumber.” It’s a nice, tidy pile of mulch…and it’s even covered. But, the city warning does indicate the accumulation of wood and hay as being problematic. I guess anything can be considered an “abandoned material” these days.

So, what about the other pile? It’s not nearly as tidy and nice. Actually, it is kind of junky. Exactly. That’s why my neighbors called the city to do a special garbage pickup. In my town, you can request this kind of thing if it is too large for normal pickup. The only problem is that they have been extremely slow in coming to get the items. So, in the meantime, one of their own officers issues a warning that it’s there! Incredible.

Now, this isn’t one of the major injustices of our time, but it is pretty darn stupid. Don’t people have anything better to do?

I also can’t help but point out the poor grammar in the warning.

If not corrected by August 4th, 2012, the City of Marion will take legal action against you to enforce it’s ordinance.

While I am not above reproach on these issues, I would like to remind people that it’s is a contraction that stands for “it is.” Now read that sentence again. That apostrophe should not be there.

Jackson County, Oregon says it owns YOUR rainwater, and the county has sentenced a man to 30 days in jail and fined him over $1500, for the supposed “crime” of collecting rainwater on his own property.

The man’s name is Gary Harrington, and he owns over 170 acres of land in Jackson County. On that land, he has three ponds, and those ponds collect rainwater that falls on his land. Common sense would say Gary has every right to have ponds with water on his 170 acres of land, but common sense has been all but abandoned in the state of Oregon. (source)

If you’ve read my book, you know that this is one of the topics that came up there — and it’s back in the news again. For the crime of not getting a water right before digging holes for ponds on his property, this man has been sentenced to serve time in a cage. As we know, regardless of their official names, these institutions are not correctional facilities. Indeed, this man has nothing to correct in his behavior. The threat of serving time in the county cage doesn’t seem to deter this guy:

Harrington said that he will never stop fighting the government on this issue. As reported in CNS News: “When something is wrong, you just, as an American citizen, you have to put your foot down and say, This is wrong; you just can’t take away anymore of my rights and from here on in, I’m going to fight it.”

Good for him. Too bad he has to be a martyr, but maybe people will start to pay attention to how ridiculous and tyrannical the government has become.

For another source article on this topic click here.

A lot of what I write about here doesn’t turn many heads — just me and my followers. Yeah, the articles tend to make a splash in certain circles, but even the people who live in the communities where the events I document take place don’t tend to have much reaction. This story is different. The comments section is full of comments that have been flagged for review/removal and name calling, etc.  People are mad about this. Of course, much of the commenting is political right vs. left jabs that don’t interest me much. But, it does interest me that this topic is gaining some attention.

So, what is it? Well, evidently, a farmer in Virginia has been cited for “selling farm products and hosting a birthday party for her best friend’s 10-year-old daughter on her 70-acre Paris, Va., farm without a special administrative permit.”

The Virginia Right to Farm Act prohibits local authorities from treating agricultural activity as a “nuisance” — which seems to be what’s happening here, since Johnson was reportedly responding to complaints from nearby residents. Boneta already had a business license the county issued her in June 2011 that allowed her to operate a “retail farm shop” on her property. Her license application specifically noted her intention to sell handspun yarns, birdhouses, soaps and other handicrafts in addition to fresh vegetables, eggs, herbs and honey.

The following month, the Fauquier County Board of Supervisors changed the classification of “farm sales” to require a special administrative permit for activities that were in compliance with the ordinance just one month before

Remember, it should not only be farmers who are upset about this. Whatever activity you enjoy doing or keeps food on your table could soon become illegal if you’re not careful to protect all liberties. If you find yourself as a complaining neighbor, ask yourself what good you are really doing for your community by getting the “authorities” involved in something like this. You are setting yourself up to be called on yourself when you think you’re doing something innocent like hosting a birthday party.

In addition to being a place where you find out about stupid laws that people get in trouble for breaking, this blog is also the place to go for stupid government programs. I’m not sure about this because I haven’t seen any official research (and I don’t know how it would be conducted, anyway), but I have my doubts about all of these gun buy back programs that I’ve been hearing about.

Over the weekend, Chicago officials collected more than 5,500 guns in exchange for pre-paid MasterCards of $100. Here are some things that don’t add up to me:

1. They say they are doing this with “no questions asked.” But, I am positive that if a certain firearm was implicated in a crime (a missing murder weapon or something), there would be questions asked after the fact. The might not ask them right then, but they’re not going to just kill a lead like that. No way. Even if it were a truly no questions asked event, this would just mean that murderers would be turning in their murder weapons with no chance of ever getting caught for their crimes. How is this a good idea? $100 does not change a murder’s mind about being a violent person. They will have access to other weapons in the future if they desire to enact violence once again.
2. Because I don’t believe it is truly “no questions asked,” I highly doubt that any of the 5,500 firearms that were collected were contributing in any way to violence in Chicago. A quick google search of “Chicago shooting” with a filter for the last 24 hours reveals that there were at least 2 people killed and 30 wounded in shootings this weekend. Evidently, these people were not motivated to turn in their firearms for a quick little gift card.
3. Sometimes the rewards for these programs are worth more than the guns themselves, so obviously it is going to look like a successful program, but it is not necessarily the best use of the taxpayer’s money. You’ve probably heard of the controversial laws surrounding “Saturday Night Specials,” or inexpensive handguns. Well, these guns are quite common and $100 might cover their cost. Therefore, if the gun has any type of damage or if it’s old, the $100 might be more than the gun is worth. The fact that something is well-attended doesn’t make it successful. Whether it achieved its purpose or not (reducing crime) should be the thing that informs us of its efficacy.
4. In previous programs in other cities, it is well known that gun dealers and people unloading junk guns that don’t even fire is quite a common thing.
5. Common sense tells us that if people can unload their old junk guns for more than they are worth, they are probably going to go buy a new gun with the money! After all, these are people who wanted to own a gun for some reason or another. I’d be interested to hear statistics of gun dealers’ sales up to one month after one of these buy backs. This is where the post title comes in. “Cash for Clunkers” was another stupid government program that gave people exorbitant amounts of money for their old cars IF they purchased a new car with the trade in money. Obviously, these gun buy back programs could be seen as gun upgrade programs, instead.
6. It’s not entirely clear where the guns that were turned in end up. Some buy back programs have destroyed the weapons on the spot. Unfortunately, this is not usually reported — the ultimate destination of these weapons. Some claim that the police get their pick of the loot and destroy the rest. Some claim that they re-sell them! Of course, I can’t really be sure, but unless they’re destroying each and every one on the spot, I can’t say I feel safer with the police having them than the little old lady down the street. Besides that, if they are just going to re-sell them, what was the point?
7. If you agree with the gun buy back programs because you are a gun control person, you have to admit that this is still a minor drop in the bucket. These 5,500 guns cannot actually amount to much in the city of Chicago…even if it was criminals turning them in…
8. I am always talking about revenue-generating laws. At times, cities crack down on certain benign behaviors in order to raise money for itself. Well, now they’re taking all of that money they raised and giving it back to you! Great, right?  No, because they’re going to need to raise it again…