City Officials order the destruction of a Tulsa woman’s garden, claiming herbs and fruit trees are “tall grass.”
I’ve complained about the same broad language in Franklin County’s health code. It outlaws “all vegetation” over so many inches, effectively criminalizing trees and shrubs. “We have no intention of enforcing it that strictly,” I’m assured. Yeah? Then change the rules to encompass only what you do mean to enforce. There’s no point to having a law on the books outlawing something you don’t mean to outlaw…because eventually, someone comes along who has the bright idea that they’re supposed to enforce the law as it’s written.
When I see stories like this one–and I seem them all too often–I’m reminded of all those movies where the peasants stand by, helpless and horrified, as the warriors destroy the peasants’ gardens and fields. It’s a worn-out plot device. Whenever a screenwriter wants to demonstrate either that people are living under tyranny or that they’ve been invaded by heartless villains, that’s what they do: show the troops tearing up vegetable gardens and setting fire to wheat fields. It’s become a cliche. Had Denise Morrison’s house had a thatched roof, these city officials would have been fairly obliged to toss a torch on it. I think it’s a rule, maybe something in a contract with the screenwriters guild.
Except that Ms. Morrison is no actress, and this isn’t a movie. There’s no hero who rides in and leads an armed rebellion. We’re not savages, after all. Government thugs who destroy someone’s livelihood because they prize the look of a newly razed yard over lush, green sustenance may be guaranteed an arrow through the forehead in the movies, but the most that happens in real life is that some language gets changed in an ordinance after the damage is already done. The same officials who ordered this wanton carnage against Ms. Morrison’s yard will cut a ribbon at a well-funded non-profit organization’s community garden, and they’ll get some media coverage about how “green” they are in time for the next election.
http://www.newson6.com/story/18802728/woman-sues-city-of-tulsa-for-cutting-down-her-edible-garden
2 thoughts on “Tulsa Destroys Woman’s Garden”
I am facing a similar situation, though mine has dragged on for months. I can’t believe how quickly they chose to destroy her property. My heart literally pains me when I hear her talk. This sets a grave precedence for America, and we must all act to preserve what few freedoms we have left. Please take a look at http://www.vegetableyarden.wordpress.com to support our own situation. I hope we don’t meet the same fate.
Having looked at your site, I can’t express to you how much I feel for what your family is going through. In my view, it’s a very simple matter. What does the city claim the public interest is in preventing you from having a garden, and what is your interest in having one? Weigh the answers to those two questions against one another.
On the one hand, it’s an argument about whether you have the right to grow food for your family’s consumption on land you control. You have a compelling reason to want to do so, and so far, they have not offered a compelling argument as to why you shouldn’t. “Eyesores” and whatever aside, they have not sufficiently refuted your interest in feeding your family well. Let’s hear them try. Let’s hear one municipal busybody in the whole damned country argue that no, people are not, in fact, better off eating homegrown food, and that the public interest is better served by forcing everyone to procure their sustenance solely by shopping at grocery stores. Let’s hear ’em try it. They have nothing on this point. The best they can do is to change the subject.
On the other hand, it’s a disagreement over issues of style and taste in landscaping. The black dress or the red one? The grass or the vegetables? Chicken or fish? Rap or country? There’s no accounting for taste, and there shouldn’t be any attempt to legislate it either, as nothing based purely on subjective ideas of taste can be defended. They can say grass is prettier, and you can say that veggies are. You’re both right and you’re both wrong, depending on who’s listening. This argument is baseless, and thus useless. It should be of no concern to any court of law. The law requires something more substantive. If they can tell you not to grow corn and tomatoes because these plants are ugly, they can just as easily tell someone else they must grow boxwood instead of forsythia, or bluegrass instead of rye.
Now weigh these concerns against each other: Your irrefutable interest in feeding your child healthy food versus their indefensible claims about the aesthetics of landscaping fashions on private property that does not belong to them. These people need to be dragged into court and shamed with their own failure at logic.
I’m no good at following my own advice, and I don’t want to make assumptions about your financial means, but if it’s at all within your power to do so, go on the offensive. Sue. Get an injunction from a court ordering code enforcement to cease and desist action against your legally planted vegetable garden. And don’t look to the police for help if you need to press criminal charges. Go straight to the prosecutor for that.