Single Mother Facing Prison for Selling Homemade Mexican Dish to Undercover Cop
reason.com
reason.com
Subverting zoning and health regulations does open a very real possibility for people to get sick though. I wonder if a product could be created that would scan individual food items for illness causing pathogens, allowing people to legally trade food without a licensed kitchen.
That's a load of garbage. Zoning and health are good things for actual businesses, but doing something on an individual level should be between two people. The courts can handle it if something goes wrong. Scale matters, and there is a long tradition of bake sales and the like in the US.
Do you expect babysitters to have a business license and be inspected? How about the neighborhood kid you get to cut your lawn? Not having a firewall between individuals / amateurs and actual business rules is just wrong.
If I prepare a meal for my neighbor for a few dollars and then they subsequently have to spend a few days in hospital because they got E.Coli due to my accidental mishandling of some spinach, should I be liable for their medical costs?
For how over-reaching New Zealand's government is about gardening, they do have an interesting plan with accident insurance, centralizing the risk for accidents of all kinds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accident_Compensation_Corporat...
With tort reform like that, could it more reasonable for people to operate small-scale, less-regulated businesses?
In rural America, we don't have those rules because we don't need them.
> If I prepare a meal for my neighbor for a few dollars and then they subsequently have to spend a few days in hospital because they got E.Coli due to my accidental mishandling of some spinach, should I be liable for their medical costs?
Yep, they are going to sue you or maybe not. If you buy something at a bake sale you should understand you are taking a chance. If you decide to sue, I guess you find out how your peers think about who is responsible.
> With tort reform like that, could it more reasonable for people to operate small-scale, less-regulated businesses?
If you open an actual business, I'm perfectly fine with you obeying the regulations and having them in the first place. I am not fine with arresting people for bake sales and making some food for you are your request. There is a simple, logical difference of scale between these activities and only an absolutist government or individuals cannot distinguish between them
...but this is the exact reason that these things can't be left in the hands of the executive anymore. They don't make good decisions, and with the internet, promulgation and understanding of the laws is much easier than ever before.
She likely did do something wrong - you can't just go and cook food and sell it without the proper license = food inspection etc..
Obviously, she should be not facing any jail time, and a warning should suffice.
But let's not avoid the reality of this - we either have decent regulation or not.
The issue here 'proportionality' not 'culpability'.
Give her a 'speeding ticket' and it should be over.
And regardless, whatever the law is, I'm happy to see it enforced, vigorously and to-the-letter. Hoping against the odds for executive "discretion" to result in anything but fomenting of privilege is simply contrary to the evidence of its conduct thus far.
TL;DR: Few laws; vigorous, robotic enforcement.
+ We need laws to regulate food esp. hygiene and sanitary standards. If you want to know why this is, then visit any less civilized place and look around. Restaurants are thin margin places - some of them will cut corners, do all sorts of stuff otherwise.
+ All laws need enforcement - and they are enforced with the threat of fines, confiscation, and ultimately the threat of violence.
For the same reason we need 'the threat of violence' to manage traffic, borders, and everything else.
The only time it's not obvious is when there is no physicality to the crime, i.e. fraud, corruption etc. but even then the 'threat of violence' is there when it comes to arrest/incarceration etc..
ICIM: I'm a "person of color who's made a lot of unfortunate choices" ;=D
We don't have to declare taxes if we make less than $600 on some activity. It isn't considered a real business if you only occasionally make a few bucks here and there. This "sting" operation targeting a pot luck group seems ridiculous.
I was a military wife. We needed to go through training to participate in certain things, like food sales as a means to raise funds. I never bothered to go through that training. It never prevented me from bringing a dish from home to a potluck meal at the unit.
As someone who gets food poisoning easily, I am all for there being strict laws concerning even small scale commercial food things. But this does not sound like it really was a commercial venture.
This is just ridiculous. Surely, we have more serious concerns for our cops to be attending to than trying to break a potluck ring. Sheesh.
I suspect it will be the same in ND.
Yes, they do that here too. What makes you think these people don't have a license?
Looking up on ND, it seems the state doesn't have too many health guidelines for individuals selling at the farmer's market. They do say, though, that individual counties may have stricter rules. That may explain it.
1) I would imagine the sheriff is going to lose his/her job too
There are ways to enforce without people being thrown in jail.
In my state/county, the organizers of the farmer's market simply will not let you set up a stall/sell without one. Everyone has to preregister and show proof of license.
No jails needed.
No kidding, bucket of money by the side of the road.
Seeing that re-invigorated my faith in humanity.
It's probably not even a legal issue, so much as an insurance thing.
I wonder if there could be a special law passed for such things, i.e. you participate and you 'waive your right to sue' kind of thing?