Woman faces jail time for planting vegetable garden in front yard

[Zephie]

Oak Park - When Julie Bass planted a vegetable garden in her front yard, the last thing she expected was to be visited by city enforcement officers, ticketed for a code violation, charged with a misdemeanor and then face jail time for refusing to remove the garden.

The Bass story began in the spring with the replacement of a sewage pipe in front of the home owned by Jason and Julie Bass in Oak Park, Michigan. Instead of replanting grass Julie decided to grow a vegetable garden to be able to feed her family quality organic vegetables while giving the neighborhood children something interesting to look at instead of a grassy lawn.

She had five large vegetable planter boxes built in the area and filled them with herbs, tomato's, cabbage, cucumbers, peppers and more. While most neighbors seemed to enjoy the new garden, a few didn't and neither did city code enforcement officers who soon arrived to give the homeowners a warning to remove the vegetable garden or face a ticket from the city for not planting 'suitable' plants.

<snip>

"That's not what we want to see in a front yard," said Oak Park City Planner Kevin Rulkowski. "If you look at the definition of what suitable is in Webster's dictionary, it will say common. So, if you look around and you look in any other community, what's common to a front yard is a nice, grass yard with beautiful trees and bushes and flowers," he said, reports Fox News.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/308925#ixzz1RdBgqXYu

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She faces 97 days in jail.

Link to petition against the charges: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/oak-park-hates-veggies/
(Edit to add petition)

[ZombieHorde]

1. Authoritarians enjoy authoritarian behavior. nt

[WingDinger]

2. There is no longer any escape from HOA nazi's. Condo or house.

[bvar22]

16. Sure there is.

Don't move into an area that has one.
I couldn't live anywhere that has a HOA.
We don't even have Building Permits, Zoning Regs, or Inspections here.

If I want to build something,
I build it...whatever, however, and wherever I want to on our property.

Like this:

Beautiful.

Total Cost = 0 (scraps)

Energy consumed = 0

Pollution = 0

Money sent to big Energy Corporations = 0

Taxes paid to fund WARS and Wall Street Bailouts = 0

[NBachers]

17. You don't also dry your scanty unmentionables out there, do you?

[xmas74]

20. I do.

I dry everything on my clotheslines. I don't care who see what-they're adults and will get over it.

The best is drying sheets. Line dried sheets feel like heaven to sleep on.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

18. I believe this is a city code issue and not and HOA

Which makes it particularly egregious in my mind.

[gateley]

3. Un-fucking-believable. nt

[Glimmer of Hope]

4. Some people need to focus on themselves and find better things to do with their lives.

[midnight]

5. They sure do....

[LeftishBrit]

6. Well, I know some people hate to 'eat their greens' but ... well, wow!

[abelenkpe]

7. K & R

Please sign petition to stop this madness.....

[felix_numinous]

8. Because a chemlawn is so much better!!!!!

Spray your lawn with cancer causing chemicals too while you're at it!! Signed the petition, thanks!!

[originalpckelly]

9. Like I said on another thread: Politicians hate vegetables because they don't want competition.

[lildreamer316]

12. LOL,but actually..

I believe big pharma hates vegetables because *they* hate competition. :)

[LeftishBrit]

13. There was an old Spitting Image episode...

where then-PM Maggie Thatcher went to a restaurant with her Cabinet ministers. The waiter asked 'What will you have?' 'Steak.' 'What about the vegetables?' 'Oh, they'll have steak too!'

[WinkyDink]

10. A just, fair, and intelligent society would encourage such lawn use.

[GKirk]

11. It's only a misdemeanor?

I say off with her head!

[MH1]

14. Sending this to my 'libertarian' friends and telling them to put up or shut up.

Along with signing and sharing it myself.

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[roody]

19. I'd go to jail for veggies if necessary. eom

[AverageJoe90]

21. Privatization strikes again.........

Sure hope the people of Michigan wake up to what corporatism is doing to their state, sometime soon.

[jmowreader]

22. If I were her...

I would take out the vegetable plants and replace them with False Aralia plants...

which, for people like the code enforcement pukes who probably don't know this plant exists, look enough like cannabis to REALLY piss off the authorities.

[blueamy66]

23. I have no problem with people planting veggies in their front yards.....

but when the weeds reach 5 feet......ya know?

[CrispyQ]

24. Some home owners did this a few years in a more quaint part of town.

It was charming.

[Fuzz]

25. I'd do the jail time, have the people who like the garden tend to it, and keep it going.

Force their hand. If it's unruly and full of weeds and looking like my garden atm, they'd have a point though. ;)

[stuntcat]

26. the green lawns should be outlawed way before veggie beds

big green grass lawns are just silly, such a waste of land and water. Nothing else will live or grow there, they are what doesn't belong.

[CTyankee]

27. I have seen gorgeous vegetable gardens in the backs of some very fancy homes in

upscale Mass. towns. One even lady started a little orchard beside her new veggie garden. She spent $27,000 in the set up, including putting in beautiful wood enclosures of the different plantings. The little orchard has peach, pear and apple trees just getting started. It is all enclosed in a tall fence. Everything looks so tasteful, right down to the "designer" wheelbarrow. There are landscapers who help with these upper class gardens, also with your very own chicken coop so you have fresh eggs.

The upper class rage right now is "local grown." The best local restaurants are outdoing one another on having strictly local grown fare...at least now, I wonder what they'll do in the winter. Meanwhile CSA's are a huge favorite with the well-heeled. They love socializing at pick up day when they come to get their "shares." These shares ain't cheap, but they appear to be very good and include all the fashionable vegetables, some of which (like root veggies) might look mysterious and must be googled.

Next they'll be hanging out their laundry to get the nice smell in their sheets...or their maids will be...