Woman faces possible jail time for planting veggie garden in violation of city code

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... and here it goes:

In Oak Park you're free to have your garden look like everybody elses, or else. And that's a good thing. She may be facing 93 days in jail. Her planting a veggie garden just shows that criminal scum will always find a way to flout the law. 93 days and misdemeanour charges are a good start, though it is far too lenient imo considering the grave possible consequences for her actions. If everybody would do as she does and plant veggies, there would be serious disturbances in the American front lawnscape, and the resulting tremors may just rip suburban America apart. Heaven forbid, people may ... get ideas and plant trees or other non-regulation items. This uppityness must not stand.

Clearly, vegetables with their lewd, disturbing shapes and forms are hardly "suitable live plant material". As the city representative is quite reasonably remarks: "Suitable" in Websters dictionary means common, i.e. if no one else has it, you mustn't.

 

I agree. This woman sounds like a real troublemaker. She should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.

 

Hanging's too good for some people.

 

Fortunately, this dangerous deviant will have ample time to think about the consequences of her actions while doing the prison garden.

 

Yet another reason why the "Tea Party" is becoming more and more popular. Government is becoming too intrusive into all aspects of our lives.

 

Yes? All the Tea Party people would do is to replace the city ordinance with a contract by a homeowner association (probably no less intrusive, usually to the contrary, but at least it's some private entity meddling into other people's business (like what they plant on their front lawn) and thus by definition wonderful, and not the evil state, in which case it would be, also by definition, Capital-T Tyranny™).

But more importantly, what I see here is an anachronism in which the city created a misdemeanour over a matter that ought to be settled well below the criminal justice threshold. Jail as the ultima ratio? For this? Preposterous. It's IMO an example of heavy handed over-policing and over-sanctioning of mundane government functions in the US. There is no clear distinction in the US between public order regulation law and criminal law.

To a larger extent such conformity ordinances have disappeared in my country (they did exist, with meticulous detail, when my parents built their house), and where they endure they usually carry fines, at worst. Also, in today's understanding of the law veggies in a well kept garden would probably be considered 'suitable' vegetation. Thirty years ago, not so much.

 

I seriously doubt that a judge would deem jail time appropriate for this. More than likely, even if she's convicted, it's a fine.

Then again, I don't think she'll lose when she goes to court. "Suitable ground vegetation" seems broad enough that it would cover vegetables. I also took the liberty of looking up "suitable" in Meriam-Webster's dictionary, to see if it actually was defined as common. It isn't:

The word "common" doesn't appear in any of the three definitions.

 

The word "common" doesn't appear, but the second definition fits

 

Yes, but it is still broad. Many things are suitable in a garden. Nothing in 'suitable' indicates any preference for a plainly decorative garden or a fruit and vegetable garden. If I was the woman's lawyer I would make exactly that argument.

The city obviously makes the argument that there is a sort of 'dress code' for gardens in front of the house, and that this dress code calls for front lawns, and that a veggie garden is somehow improper - it is an exception after all - and not carried by, let's call it founder's intent. What else can they do? They have to make a bad case and that argument does as good or bad as they can do without backing down.

Naturally, if the town was prudent they would back down, and clarify the wording of the ordinance, if they can get a majority for that. Something tells me they won't do so. This has become a test of wills, and the city very much wills that their ordinance be obeyed the way they prefer to read it, naturally, at tax payer's expense.

 

Vile veggies ... steps must be taken to eradicate such threats from the face of the earth.

 

If she sent some of those fresh veggies to her neighbors, they would probably shut the f**k up. Free maters and taters are always a hit.

 

Some cucumbers or some fresh mungbean sprouts would be an appropriate gift

 

HOAs are bad enough -- tin plated douches with nothing better to do than obsess over minutae in the yards of other people. But the municipal government being all up in arms over a vegetable garden? That's nucking futz. It makes me thing that there must be something else going on -- someone has it in for this woman for a reason other than the ostensible one listed.

And all the while, killers, rapists, muggers, thieves, and other serious criminals run free while the duly elected government focuses on the dangers of . . . vegetables. Nauseating.

 

I never understood some things in the USA. For example, how is it possible that in some US states, oral sex is prohibited (and is a criminal offense, if I remember correctly?). I mean, doesn't this violate the freedom rights in the US Constitution? Sorry this is totally off-topic, I just didn't want to open a new thread for it if a one-sentence answer exists. (My association to this came from this vegetable topic.)

 

Oral sex is only prohibited if performed on vegetables (although for some reason legumes don't count).

 

It's not. Contrary to popular misconception, Clinton wasn't in trouble with Congress over his indiscretions. Their problem was the fact that he perjured himself by lying about it during the hearing.

But just like the falsehood of Gore claiming to have invented the Internet, the Neo-Cons just kept repeating their version of events and hoped no one would notice how moronic their claims were.

 

Local municipal governments specialize in this sort of code 'enforcement,' most likely because it's very easy to enforce. I have to ask though, what if this woman wanted to erect a statue of Adolf Hitler in her front yard? Standards are inevitably going to come into play to avoid just that sort of thing, and the fact of the matter is that front yard gardens fall outside those standards in most communities. Oak Park is regular suburbia, so while rural areas might not give a damn because your closest neighbor is 500 feet away, 'the neighborhood' typically does.

 

There are still some states that have these laws on the books (some also have them for homosexual sex too). However, they are no longer enforced for the simple reason that they would lose if they ever went to court for the exact reason you state. The 14th amendment of the Constitution has been interpreted repeatedly by the Supreme Court to grant an implicit right to privacy, so no one is ever charged for this anymore.

 

Just in case some didn't click on the link in the link to see the garden, here it is.
It doesn't look bad at all and in fact is much nicer than I was imagining.