Health department raids community picnic and destroys all food with bleach

A Distinctive World ^

[Sopater]

We were told our food was unfit for consumption and demanded that we call off the event...

Quail Farm

The evening was everything I had dreamed and hoped it would be. The weather was perfect, the farm was filled with friends and guests roaming around talking about organic, sustainable farming practices. Our guests were excited to spend an evening together. The food was prepared exquisitely. The long dinner table, under the direction of dear friends, was absolutely stunningly beautiful. The music was superb. The stars were bright and life was really good. And then, …for a few moments, it felt like the rug was pulled out from underneath us and my wonderful world came crashing down. As guests were mingling, finishing tours of the farm, and while the first course of the meal was being prepared and ready to be sent out, a Southern Nevada Health District employee came for an inspection.

Community Dinner at Quail Farm

Because this was a gathering of people invited to our farm for dinner, I had no idea that the Health Department would become involved. I received a phone call from them two days before the event informing me that because this was a “public event” (I would like to know what is the definition of “public” and “private”) we would be required to apply for a “special use permit.” If we did not do so immediately, we would be charged a ridiculous fine. Stunned, we immediately complied.
We were in the middle of our harvest day for our CSA shares, a very busy time for us, but Monte immediately left to comply with the demand and filled out the required paper work and paid for the fee. (Did I mention that we live in Overton, nowhere near a Health Department office?) Paper work now in order, he was informed that we would not actually be given the permit until an inspector came to check it all out. She came literally while our guests were arriving! In order to overcome any trouble with the Health Department of cooking on the premises, most of the food was prepared in a certified kitchen in Las Vegas; and to further remove any doubt, we rented a certified kitchen trailer to be here on the farm for the preparation of the meals.

The inspector, Mary Oaks, clearly not the one in charge of the inspection as she was constantly on the phone with her superior Susan somebody who was calling all the shots from who knows where.

We were told our food was unfit for consumption and demanded that we call off the event because:

EH Specialist II Mary Oakes

1. Some of the prepared food packages did not have labels on them. (The code actually allows for this if it is to be consumed within 72 hours.)
2. Some of the meat was not USDA certified. (Did I mention that this was a farm to fork meal?)
3. Some of the food that was prepared in advance was not up to temperature at the time of inspection. (It was being prepared to be brought to proper temperature for serving when the inspection occurred.)
4. Even the vegetables prepared in advance had to be thrown out because they were cut and were then considered a “bio-hazard”.
5. We did not have receipts for our food. (Reminder! This food came from farms not from the supermarket! I have talked with several chefs who have said that in all their years cooking they have never been asked for receipts.)

At this time Monte, trying to reason with Susan to find a possible solution for the problem, suggested turning this event from a “public” event to a “private” event by allowing the guests to become part of our farm club, thus eliminating any jurisdiction or responsibility on their part. This idea infuriated Susan and threatened that if we did not comply the police would be called and personally escort our guests off the property. This is not the vision of the evening we had in mind! So regretfully, again we complied.

The only way to keep our guests on the property was to destroy the food

Bleach is poured on organic food

I can’t tell you how sick to my stomach I was watching that first dish of Mint Lamb Meatballs hit the bottom of the unsanitized trash can. Here we were with guests who had paid in advance and had come from long distances away anticipating a wonderful dining experience, waiting for dinner while we were behind the kitchen curtain throwing it away! I know of the hours and labor that went into the preparation of that food. We asked the inspector if we could save the food for a private family event that we were having the next day. (A personal family choice to use our own food.) We were denied and she was insulted that we would even consider endangering our families health. I assured her that I had complete faith and trust in Giovanni our chef and the food that was prepared, (obviously, or I wouldn’t be wanting to serve it to our guests).

Farm food is destroyed

I then asked if we couldn’t feed the food to our “public guests” or even to our private family, then at least let us feed it to our pigs. (I think it should be a criminal action to waste any resource of the land. Being dedicated to our organic farm, we are forever looking for good inputs into our compost and soil and good food that can be fed to our animals. The animals and compost pile always get our left over garden surplus and food. We truly are trying to be as sustainable as possible.) Again, a call to Susan and another negative response. Okay, so let me get this right. So the food that was raised here on our farm and selected and gathered from familiar local sources, cooked and prepared with skill and love was even unfit to feed to my pigs!?! Who gave them the right to tell me what I feed my animals? Not only were we denied the use of the food for any purpose, to ensure that it truly was unfit for feed of any kind we were again threatened with police action if we did not only throw the food in the trash, but then to add insult to injury, we were ordered to pour bleach on it.

Food Lined up to Be Destroyed by Health Department

Now the food is also unfit for compost as I would be negligent to allow any little critters to nibble on it while it was composting and ingest that bleach resulting in a horrible death. Literally hundreds of pounds of food was good for nothing but adding to our ever increasing land fill! At some point in all of this turmoil Monte reminded me that I had the emergency phone number for the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF) on our refrigerator. I put it there never really believing that I would ever have to use it. We became members of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund several years ago as a protection for us, but mostly to add support to other farmers battling against the oppressive legal actions taken against the small farmers trying to produce good wholesome food without government intrusion. The local, sustainable food battle is being waged all across America! May I mention that not one battle has been brought on because of any illness to the patrons of these farms! The battles are started by government officials swooping down on farms and farmers like SWAT teams confiscating not only the wholesome food items produced but even their farm equipment! Some of them actually wearing HAZMAT suits as if they were walking into a nuclear meltdown! I have personally listened to some of their heart wrenching stories and have continued to follow them through the FTCLDF’s updates.

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[philman_36]

Three quick links...
@Six years ago decided to try growing vegetables on a tiny patch of ground.

@I am a co-founder and the president of Monticello College, a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and the former president of George Wythe University.

@The Center For Social Leadership Monticello College, Utah

[philman_36]

Sorry, the first link should read...
Six years ago one of my former mentees decided to try growing vegetables on a tiny patch of ground.

[Tucker39]

But once you get a Zero-type in the White House, the lid’s off, and the local vermin come out of the woodwork, assuming they have carte blanche to do as they please. And if this story really WAS legit, they DID as they pleased, from extorting a permit fee out of the suckers, to ruining their soiree anyhow.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

http://www.quailhollowfarmcsa.com/30.html

More information. And this happened last October.

[philman_36]

Well, after a little bit of reading it seems that you've got some social, communal living liberals who got eaten by the very laws that liberals and progressives desire and now they want sympathy.

[cherry]

I think the word is out:...any govt entity can take over everything that they ever thought about in their wet dreams....

oh the power...the power.....

communism...its here.....the favored and the govt employed have been given carte blanche to do whatever they want to...

[Cboldt]

-- But once you get a Zero-type in the White House, the lid's off, and the local vermin come out of the woodwork, assuming they have carte blanche to do as they please. --

Welllll, Randy Weaver and the Ruby Ridge thing went down under GHW Bush; and I bet there are stories of food police pulling this sort of stunt when the Republicans were in charge in Washington, DC, too.

Just saying, local vermin are going to pop up from time to time, regardless of which big-government party is running the federal bureaucracies.

[muawiyah]

No, the logic is very simple ~ people who breed rabbits also breed disease ~ pet bunnies pass it along ~ and it may get into the hutches of breeders who produce them for meat and rabbit's feet!

It's a small enough market that you have to treat small breeders (handful of rabbits changing hands each year) just like the large breeders.

I'm not sure if the rules protect the meat market all that well, but they do rope in folks who can't imagine they are major players.

[TASMANIANRED]

Need to sue them as an agency and by name.

[Cboldt]

-- Well, after a little bit of reading it seems that you've got some social, communal living liberals who got eaten by the very laws that liberals and progressives desire and now they want sympathy. --

Yeah, damn them anyway.

Stereotype much? Not saying they aren't liberals, but other than the stereotype, I don't see any evidence. And the stereotype is dubious - I would enjoy living on a self-sustainable plot, and I'm no liberal, nor am I into communal living.

It was a bit of a consciousness-shifting event to sit in a banquet hall at the Tuscany in Las Vegas on Monday evening alongside some 95 county sheriffs and a handful of deputies -- most in full uniform with gleaming badges -- listening to and applauding speakers you'd more commonly associate with Libertarian Party gatherings or seminars sponsored by the Austrian economists of the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

One popular topic at the gathering was United Nations Agenda 21, which has given the schoolmarms of the fascist Left such popular euphemisms as "sustainable development," but which is actually about shoving rural folk off the land under any of a thousand "environmental" pretexts, the long-term goal being to cluster a sharply reduced remnant of mankind into urban tenement ghettos from which we can be shuttled to our state-assigned jobs in little solar-powered trolleys.

One local couple who spoke with the sheriffs Monday were Laura and Monte Bledsoe of Overton's Quail Hollow Farm. ...

Raid turns Overton farmers into celebrities - Las Vegas Review-Journal, Feb 5, 2012

[BooBoo1000]

These yahoos are in violation of Nevada Law.They should have approached the Department of Health with a bag full of home grown money to be spread around the office. I guarantee their night would have been perfect.Las Vegas runs on graft. If you have any doubt just read the Review Journal for a while. If you think the days of the Mob and Payola are over just live here a while. Case in point check out the Scandal on the Home Owners Association, see how many lawyers and Judges and high mucky Mucks are involved.

[philman_36]

Well then how about you go scrounge up their conservative credentials and prove me wrong instead of relying on some "feel good" article.
And, since you've chosen to throw down the gauntlet, I'll see what I can find on them.

[muawiyah]

What happens in NV stays in NV. Remember, the source you referenced sued FR.

[B4Ranch]

Yes, it does meet my standards of identification.

“By Monte & Laura Bledsoe | November 18, 2011

On the evening of October 21, 2011 // “Farm to Fork Dinner” at Quail Hollow Farm, Southern Nevada”

There is no question about when, where or who.

I agree they got the shaft and I have spoken with more than one elected legislative official about the subject in the past few years. They need to see if they can get the local sheriff on their side of the problem.

[philman_36]

Let's start with the premise...
@Community Supported Agriculture ~ Alternatives to the Industrial Agriculture Model
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is positive environmentalism.Community Supported Agriculture is an agricultural paradigm that offers an alternative to industrialized agriculture. If industrial agriculture is “the process by which agricultural production becomes less a way of life and more a commercial activity (Groh 1997)” then the CSA movement is an attempt to reverse that trend. The CSA movement seeks to combat the destruction of land and people inherent in the industrial model by disengaging from it and building on a set of principles that are environmentally stable, socially equitable and economically viable.

[tbw2]

That, I believe, is the origin of the title of “Hunger Games”. Don’t enter, you get executed. And you don’t get the food rations, either.

[Cboldt]

-- They need to see if they can get the local sheriff on their side of the problem. --

The local law enforcement was on their side, the night the health department wonder-woman called for them to destroy the fixing's for the planned meal.

Public sentiment is strongly against the health department on this one, as well. From what little I've read, Bledsoes are working with state and local legislatures on the general subject - so that overzealous enforcers don't even feel the urge to bust up an outdoor dinner party made with homegrown food.

[philman_36]

And speaking of Agenda 21... Organic Foods: Farmers Are Boxing CleverRepairing this damage accords with two of the organic movement's important principles - working in locally organised agricultural systems and taking account of the social and ecological impact of farming methods. Box schemes are one part of this local food economy, which is known generically as "community supported agriculture".
Others are food co -operatives, community- owned farms and gardens, allotments, farmers' markets and local cooking businesses. In the UK, the number of farmers' markets, where producers sell direct to customers, has increased dramatically in the past few years. There are now 120 of them, held regularly from Penzance in Cornwall to Perth in Scotland. Many local authorities are helping to establish farmers' markets as part of their sustainable development strategy, known as Local Agenda 21 since being agreed at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

Is somebody getting played due to their ignorance?

[tbw2]

Restaurants maybe couldn’t stand the competition.

[Cboldt]

-- Well then how about you go scrounge up their conservative credentials and prove me wrong instead of relying on some "feel good" article. --

I admitted up front that they might be liberals, that is, your hunch might be right. All I was pointing out was that you jumped to the conclusion.

And in the end, we might well just end up arguing what it takes to qualify for "conservative" or "liberal" label, which I would find to be pointless pigeonholing.

Even if they are flaming liberals, I'd take their side against the local jackboot, in this one. And I stand in their camp against the UN zoning intentions.

I did read that Laura Bledsoe spends time in Africa, teaching farming, etc. Maybe she's a missionary of some sort. Seem to be decent, hardworking folk, to me.