Free Republic

LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) — The Southern California maker of a popular hot sauce has been ordered to cease operations that have allegedly emitted harmful odors into the surrounding community, after residents’ complaints of health problems prompted a lawsuit. A state court judge issued a decision late Tuesday finding that Huy Fong Foods Inc., the manufacturer of cult-favorite Sriracha “Rooster Sauce” and other chili sauce products, must “make changes in its site operations reducing odors and the potential for odors” at its Irwindale, Calif., factory. The injunction is slated to take effect on Dec. 9. Bloomberg Enlarge Image The company, which...

Newton Mayor Setti Warren announced Tuesday he would block funding for a controversial proposal to build affordable housing for formerly homeless people on Beacon Street in Waban, saying residents need more time to discuss the issue. "There are several reasons why I cannot support the allocation of federal funding for the proposal at this time," Warren said in a statement. “For an affordable housing project to move forward anywhere in the city, I believe it is essential that we first allow for an appropriate period of time for our residents to be heard." The proposal, called Engine 6, has drawn...

ELKTON, MINN. -- Every sunny morning, shadows from the massive rotating blades swing across their breakfast table. The giant towers dominate the view from their deck. Noise from the turbines fills the silence that Dolores and Rudy Jech once enjoyed on their Minnesota farm. "Rudy and I are retired, and we like to sit out on our deck," Dolores said. "And that darned thing is right across the road from us. It's an eyesore, it's noisy, and having so many of them there's a constant hum." Just as they are being touted as a green, economical and job-producing energy source,...

West Berkeley activists are dead set against the mayor's "green corridor" vision, saying it will cause gentrification, too much density, and high rents. The vision of a denser San Pablo Avenue won't come to pass if area residents have their way. Fifty years from now, after the polar ice caps melt and West Berkeley is under water, people might look back on 2009 and say, "What the hell were they thinking?" Why were old hippies in what could be the most liberal city in America working overtime to block the widespread proliferation of green-tech businesses and dense urban development in...

As the military prepares to close Fort Lawton, an Army Reserve base nestled in Seattle's Magnolia neighborhood, a city proposal to develop a 200-home subdivision that includes housing for the homeless angers some residents. ___ A newly released city plan to redevelop the soon-to-be-closed Fort Lawton in Seattle calls for building a 200-home subdivision of market-rate and affordable housing on about 18 acres. At a final community meeting Saturday at Fort Lawton, those living near the Army Reserve base said they didn't oppose housing for the homeless, but they worried that the total number of homes proposed and the percentage...

While white shirt-wearing activists have been taking to the street around the country calling for immigrant rights, in Aspen, a different brigade of White Shirts has hit town. These folks are wearing “We (Heart) Aspen” T-shirts, like those old “I (Heart) NY” shirts, and calling for slow growth in town and protection of some of the town’s historic, or kind of historic, buildings that could meet the wrecking ball. On Tuesday, they won a bit of a victory when City Council declared a six-month moratorium on new development applications. That came on top of a recent action by Pitkin County...

Vol. 7, No. 29 July 25, 2002NIMBYism and the Garbage Barge from Hell by Steven Hayward Washington DC – Think back to 1986. Ronald Reagan was in the White House, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 1,750, and Duran-Duran was at the top of the pop charts. This was also the year that the Khian Sea, an ocean-going barge containing seven tons of ash from incinerated household garbage, set sail from Philadelphia to dispose of its load in an overseas landfill. Sixteen years later, the Khian Sea has at last returned to Philadelphia—with its original load of ash.In the...