Posted on 08/02/2008 3:28:39 PM PDT by Graybeard58
KENT -- Jon Hoose's first crop of sweet corn he'd ever grown started to come in this summer about as well as the 17-year-old could have hoped.
He'd gotten his own rumbling John Deere tractor as a high school graduation gift. His dad, a former dairy farmer, helped him secure about 20 acres of leased land, and loaned him the cash to plant corn and pumpkins.
In early July, he stacked harvested corn on a picnic table at the end of his driveway on Davis Road, scrawled two cardboard signs advertising sweet corn and put them out on Route 341. He stationed his 13-year-old brother, Tom, to man the operation. When Tom wasn't there, they left a jar for customers to pay their $6 a dozen.
It was an operation they assumed was as harmless as a lemonade stand, but only about 10 days and $300 later, they received a letter from the town. They were running an unauthorized business, the letter said, and the signs on the road were prohibited by town ordinance. They had to stop selling corn by July 23.
"What are we going to do with it? We've got all this corn now," said Horse, who spent his four years at Housatonic Valley Regional High School in the National FFA Organization. Their plan was to sell about 25 percent of it from the picnic table. The rest they already made an arrangement to sell wholesale. Horse is saving his profits, partly to go to college.
On top of that, Hoose and his father, Tim Hoose, had purposely planned for their corn to come in later than most corn crops. They hoped to be the only game in town later this summer and early this fall, when most farmers may have run out. Over the next two months, most of their corn will reach it's peak.
"We'll sell wholesale what we can, and maybe give some away," Hoose said. "We can't let it go bad."
To operate a roadside stand, Kent residents must apply for a permit from the Planning and Zoning Commission. There has to be a free-standing structure to house the stand, adequate parking, and approval of the plan during a hearing. The process can take as little as a week, or as many as three months, said Jennifer Lemansky, land use administrator.
By that time, corn season could be over for this year.
The Connecticut Farm Bureau routinely hears questions from farmers who are told by their towns they're violating rules and ordinances, said Joan Nichols, government relations specialist with the bureau. "Unfortunately because we're a home-rule state, sometimes common sense doesn't always come into play," she said.
She said most towns have ordinances about agriculture but rules vary wildly from towns that are accommodating to farmers and others that are "not so agriculturally friendly."
"I didn't think it was a big deal to sell corn at the end of your driveway. Farmers don't have time to screw around with small-town, stupid politics," Tim Hoose said. "He's doing something practical with his life ... and he's doing something important."
As he drove his pickup truck past the pumpkins growing steadily next to the corn on Friday evening, Jon Hoose, for one, was hoping something gets straightened out before his next harvest is ready just as they planned it, in time for Halloween.
Yeah, next year he’ll go off to college and be taught he should stand in line with his hand out to the government for his food. Like a good little commie, I mean American.
/Sarcasm taggy thing
I don't try to sell my world renowned salsa at the end of my driveway, I sell it online. Have you tried my salsa? It's free, I even pay the postage.
How do I make any money that way?
Volume my friend volume.
He just forgot to take the first 4 or 5 dozen ears to the zoning commission.If it works in Chicagolike that, I’m sure it would work there.
Do you have a Grand Poobah?
Gardening Ping?
Opinions here folks.
Because I live in an unicorporated area of my county and I grow or make the stuff I’m selling myself the County does not require anything from me and I am free to put up a stand, signs, whatever.
But that is not always true in some of the incorporated towns in the County.
***He could just post signs up around town like everyone else does that say:
“Garage Sale”***
Which reminds me, I passed a house yesterday on a suburban street and the lawn had a bunch of cluttered tables, and a sign which said, “Divorce Sale.”
I wonder if that’s the newest sign of the times.
They are called "garage sales" or "Yard sales" in my area and I detest them, so I don't patronize them.
I’m actually in the same state as you, but I’m from Connecticut. I have no idea why anybody would “detest” tag/yard/garage sales.
They ended up selling their home and property.
Planning commissions are just a notch below Law Enforcement Oversight committees on my list of socialist organizations...
the letter said, and the signs on the road were prohibited by town ordinance. They had to stop selling corn by July 23.
+++++++++++++++++++
Give free corn to the town’s leaders. Get it on tape as they accept your gift. When the town comes after you make a claim that the town’s leaders were extorting you by demanding more corn and when you refused they wrote their letter demanding you stop selling. You can now document bribery and the extortion charge would probably stick in a farming community. They’d probably come around if you work it correctly.
I did say I detest them, perhaps "detest" was too strong a word. The reason I dislike them, is that they look junky. Realize too, I did not reccommend outlawing them nor did I suggest anyone but me, not patronize them.
My wife goes to them and she takes our little 9 year old grand daughter along, who is nuts about them. They are just not for me.
UnAmerican maybe......but I detest chicken too.
If the gubmint and its poll-it-icians don’t get their cut, you can’t do it. It’s about money. Everything is always about money.
Not UnAmerican..........just weird :)
How bout this. It’s his life, his effort, and his land.
He’s perfectly free to offer the products of those things to other individuals without some third party stepping in and forcing him to jump through hoops and get permission from bureaucrats.
The worst part is that the simple idea I just wrote would be considered by most to be “extreme” or “idealistic”, because we’ve come to accept interference in every facet of our lives as acceptable. By what right does any mooching politician inject himself into this young man’s life as he offers some cobs of corn to his neighbors?
Not illegal.
Kid has every lawful right to sell his corn.
A “business” is an ongoing concern. This is a seasonal harvest. Big difference. If he had gone to some other farm and bought a bunch of corn, then set up a stand to sell it, he would be engaged in buying and selling.
But he’s not.
No, but I did have truck one time with no floor board and I joked that we had to start it by running down the road and hopping into the seat once we got rolling.
AMEN. You are sooo right.
Hard to sell corn online. Hmm, FREE salsa? I might be interested.
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