Friday, August 06, 2010

Chicago's Green Pepper Police Show Who's the Boss

Levios reports on the nanny state in Chicago:
A city investigator swooped into an Andersonville home Wednesday, on a tip that that folks inside were dealers.

The merchandise: locally grown organic carrots, cucumbers, green peppers, bulb fennel and garlic chives. Not to mention heirloom tomatoes.

The investigator from the Chicago Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection mistakenly believed the family was selling the produce from their front porch, as a neighbor had reported in a complaint to 311.

But the family explained that they were just members of a community supported agriculture (CSA) club. Like thousands of Chicago area residents, they buy shares in local farms during the winter and spring as payment for boxes of fresh produce during the summer and fall. Members pick up their boxes during specified hours at homes, churches, farmers markets and even downtown’s Aon building this year.

But the business affairs investigator had never heard of this concept and slapped the Andersonville family with a “cease and desist” order and left.
Freedom isn't a big concept in Chicago.