Cops Bust Newly Unemployed SC Man For Selling Veggies Out of His Yard

P. Gardner Goldsmith | May 20, 2020
DONATE
Font Size

A York, County, South Carolina man who’s been shut out of his job by the state legislature and Governor Henry McMaster (R) has ALSO been shut out of offering vegetables for sale ON HIS OWN PROPERTY.

As Alicia Turner reports for CountOn2:

A South Carolina man says his business was shut down for trying to put food on people’s table and his own.

His name is John Long, and he could be our neighbor. He could be you, or me.

Mr. Long is a carpenter who has been prevented from offering his primary skills to willing customers, thanks to the March edict by the government declaring what were “essential” and “non-essential” jobs, which effectively shut down his livelihood.

In order to survive, keep his home, and offer something others might want, Mr. Long has been going out at 2 AM to buy produce, drive home, and sell it to people passing his lawn.

But now, York County says that’s illegal because it’s in a residential area.

Yep. Little Leviathan rears its ugly head with...zoning.

Of course, "zoning" didn’t exist in the US 200 years ago. It is an outgrowth of political interests working with special interests to restrict competition and offer favored land prices to other special interests. Inspired by the 18th and 19th Century British practice of “enclosure” that occurred as the feudal system decayed and royal peers worked to create corporate holdings over land, it creates a set of rules that often damage the freedom of small landowners.

And Mr. Long is one of them.

If I was uptown in the Food Lion parking lot, I could sell, but I can’t do it on my own land.

On the bright side, Ms. Turner reports:

Long posted on NextDoor about the county telling him he can’t sell the fruit and hundreds of people have commented to show support.

But South Carolinians – and all Americans – might want to keep in mind how pernicious zoning really is, and the source of the poison going back to landed gentry in the UK.

It seems that Mr. Long didn’t know he was a subject of the King.

donate