Dave Roland - Should a Grandma Go to Jail for Feeding Her Neighbors?

Dave Roland, attorney and Director of Allied Litigation at the Goldwater Institute, joins Lars to discuss a Missouri grandmother threatened with fines and jail for serving free homemade breakfasts. When did feeding your neighbors become a government-regulated business?

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Hey, welcome back to the program. This segment of the show brought to you by Takelean.com. Everybody talks about those weight loss injections, but if you want results without the needles, without the prescriptions, doctors created lean. I've used it myself. It helps curb your appetite, balance your blood sugar, and burn up fat. Get 20% off plus free rush shipping at takelean.com and use promo code Lars. That's takelean.com and use promo code Lars. Glad to be with you on a Monday. Always glad to take your calls. A real pleasure to welcome back to the program Dave Roland, who's an attorney and director of Allied Litigation at the Goldwater Institute. Dave, welcome back. Thanks so much for having me on, Lars. Is it now illegal somewhere in America to feed breakfast to your neighbors? You know, there are some folks who would like to believe that.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

The crazy thing about this is there are food codes all over the country that are structured very much like the food code in Boone County, Missouri, where the government is now trying to trying to crack down on a little old grandma who just wanted to provide her neighbors a place to come and gather together each morning and get a bite to eat. It seems insane that the government thinks that it's got the ability to reach into people's homes and tell them what they're allowed to share with each other, but that indeed is the position that the Boone County Health Department has taken.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Okay, so so Dave, are they taking a law that was perhaps written in a sensible way to address a very different kind of use of or different uh offering of food and then misapplying it to this young lady uh who's now the subject of it, Kathy?

SPEAKER_01 2:32

So there is that argument, but I think that the the drafting of this law was actually intentional. So, like I said, yeah, so so this this food code is built off of a model that has been adopted nationwide. It was developed several decades ago, and they very plainly drafted it, intending to be able to apply it, even in situations where no one is asking for or receiving any money for the food that's being offered. They want to be able to apply the law in situations like this. And um, I I know because I've run into this before. Several years ago, I uh litigated a case involving a pastor in the city of St. Louis who was going out and feeding the homeless. He wasn't asking anybody for money. Uh he wasn't getting anything out of it himself. He was just pursuing his ministry, and the city cracked down on him using an almost identical food code. So I think that it's actually part of the design of this food code that they can indeed apply it against people, even if there's no money changing hands, even if nobody expects any compensation whatsoever.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Okay, now, Dave, I'll tell you that in the last couple of weeks, I've started to tell my audience that one of the rules I've always followed, I'm not an attorney, is that if you want to get rid of some bad rules, just enforce them to the nth degree. And I think Ennis Cantor is trying to do that to the uh WNBA by saying, fine, you're gonna welcome uh biological males to play basketball, then put me on the court and I'll play basketball.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

We're gonna hold you to it, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Yeah, I'm gonna hold you to the rule. And what I'm wondering about, what I got to thinking about is Dave, I've had barbecues at my home. And uh my family, my family has a little farm that we're trying to restore, and and we've had barbecues there. And it's sort of one cut, you know, if if if you want to stop by, come on and stop by. Wouldn't you think that that the average home barbecue, unless you had a specific list of people you were bringing, like only, you know, family members you're related to or something, that these same cottage food laws would apply to somebody who has a barbecue and says, Oh, you're in town, fine, stop by, we're having a barbecue, that it would apply just as well, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Yeah, your instinct is absolutely correct. And and one of the things that came out in the St. Louis case was that they acknowledged, yeah, I mean, if we are uh applying the letter of the law here, it would apply to potlucks at churches, it would apply to tailgating uh at college or high school football games, it would apply to backyard barbecues, it would apply even if you welcome people over to your house for Thanksgiving dinner. Um that's the that's the crazy element of all of this is if we take the law at its own word, that's exactly what it does. Um it is not clear whether the Boone County is going to try and dig itself out of that particular hole, but at least in some of the initial media responses that they provided, they seem to indicate that anytime you have somebody providing food to quote unquote the public, which basically, I guess, means anybody who's not a direct family member, uh, then you are subject to the food, the food code.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Well, and and in this case, they're they're gonna they're telling this young lady, Kathy, that if you want to do this, you're gonna have to get a commercial kitchen, and I can tell you that's complicated, get a food permit, and I guess anybody who helps you with the food would have to get a food handler's card as well, and then subject yourself to the government's restaurant regulations to be able to do it legally. That's what they're telling her.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Point out that she's already got the food handler's card because so she lives in a small town of only about 300 people, and up until recently, she worked at the only place in town that provided food like uh the cooked food for sale. That was a gas station. Um, and so she has the food handler's card. She knows how to deal with this stuff. It's just she's doing this in the privacy of her own home and on a non-commercial basis, so she shouldn't have to jump through any additional hoops. Uh but but yeah, it's really ludicrous the extent to which they're they're trying to apply this. And the question is whether they're now gonna have the courage of their convictions or whether if they don't back off, then I think this is pretty likely to turn into an important lawsuit.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

So Dave Roland, is the Goldwater Institute gonna go after this and defend her? Oh, did we lose, Dave? I wonder if we lost Dave. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

You cut out just for a second, but you're back now. I missed your question, if you could repeat it.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Is Goldwater gonna go to bad for Kathy?

SPEAKER_01 6:59

Well, that depends very much on Boone County. Um we we got involved in the situation because we think it raises a very important constitutional issue. That is, you know, are people allowed to engage in hospitality on a non-commercial basis, uh, or is the government permitted to intrude and tell them no, you have to get our permission first? Uh we think that this is a very important thing.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Does that come down to freedom of association? Is that the right? Am I thinking right?

SPEAKER_01 7:26

That's part of it. That's not all of it. Um so so one of the things that the U.S. Supreme Court has said is there are unenumerated rights. There are rights that Americans have uh a reasonable expectation of being able to exercise without governmental permission, even if it's not expressly written into the Constitution. So, for example, the right to establish a home, to raise your children as you see fit, uh, the right to marry, these are all rights that are not expressly written into the Constitution, but they are protected. And we think that uh the right to engage in private hospitality is deeply embedded in American history and tradition. And that's the test that the court has said.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

I hope that that is the direction they go. That's Dave Rowland from the Goldwater Institute. Dave, thank you very much. I appreciate the time. By the way, I want you to listen closely. Do you hear that? Yeah, that's my phone. No spam calls, no spam text. I love the silence. Your phone, probably not so quiet. And here's why the data brokers are selling your personal info like it's on clearance. And they used to do that to me until about January of this year when I employed Incogni. And you can do it too. Because what are they selling? Your phone number, your home address, your email, family members, political affiliations, even where you bank, those scammers blowing up your phone, they didn't get lucky. They bought your information, and they're going to keep on buying it over and over until you make them stop, the way I did with Incogni's help. That's I-N-C-O-G-N-I. Incogni automatically removes my personal info from hundreds of data brokers and people search sites. And they've been doing it since January. In fact, I can watch the progress online. Incogni sends the legal removal requests, then they follow up and they keep on monitoring so my info stays off the list. You should do the same. If the scammers can't find you, they can't target you. If the spammers can't find you, they can't bother you. Get 60% off the regular price right now at incogni.com slash LARS. That's I N C O G N I, incogni.com slash Lars. The sweetest sound your phone can make is no sound at all.