Bake Sales and Lemonade Stands Don’t Count
by Christine Stuart | August 11, 2009 8:47 PM
Posted to Legal
During Tuesday’s day-long hearing on the cease and desist order issued to a vegetarian peace group, Middletown Health Department officials testified that they attempted to help bring the group into compliance.
Acting on an anonymous complaint from a citizen in October 2008, Salvatore Nesci, chief public health sanitarian, said his department began an investigation of the Food Not Bombs Middletown chapter.
“We don’t want to see them stop, we just want to see them do it the right way,” Nesci testified.
Nesci said the first time he paid a visit to the group was back in November 2008 during hunting season as he was returning to town from the range. He said he observed pots of prepared food which weren’t covered by sneeze guards. He said members of the group were also dispensing food without gloves and using the same utensils for multiple pots of food.
Nesci said he spoke to the group as a whole, but was unable to identify anyone individual who was there during the encounter. The attorney’s representing members of Food Not Bombs objected to the testimony saying it was more than hearsay and the state Department of Public Health hearing officer Stacy Owens said she would give the testimony its due weight.
When asked by Peter Goselin, one of the attorney’s representing Food Not Bombs members, if lemonade stands, bake sales, or potluck suppers fall under the Middletown Health code, Manfred Rehm, the lead sanitarian in the case, said “no.”
“There’s nothing potentially hazardous about a lemonade stand,” Rehm said. “As far as I know we don’t stop kids or people selling cookies on their front lawns.”
During his testimony Nesci said the reason Food Not Bombs is regulated is because it participates in the activity every Sunday afternoon when the St. Vincent DePaul soup kitchen is closed.
He said because the groups activities are routine they qualify as a retail establishment and are subject to regulation under the municipal and state health code.
Nesci said there were attempts to find a compromise solution to the issue. He said St. Vincent DePaul volunteered to open its kitchen to the group on Sunday’s and the owner of the Buttonwood Tree agreed to be the qualified food operator for the weekly meal.
“Their work is admirable,” Nesci said. “It needs to be brought into compliance so we can all work together.”
But members of Food Not Bombs believed such a compromise would violate their beliefs.
Food Not Bombs does not “dispense food” in the manner that the city’s health code regulates, like a restaurant or a soup kitchen. Instead, Food Not Bombs gathers as a community to share food, in the form of a potluck, as a statement of equality and abundance.
Members of Food Not Bombs are expected to testify when the hearing continues. Lowe said the only thing she was going to consider in this case is whether the health code was properly applied to the group. She said the constitutional issues were not within her jurisdiction.
Food Not Bombs has also filed an injunction in federal court. In that lawsuit they argue the case and desist order is a violation of their First Amendment rights.
Click here to read our previous report.
The hearing will continue in mid-September. Attorney’s for Food Not Bombs have yet to present any of their witnesses and ran out of time Tuesday to cross-examine Nesci, who will take the stand again when the hearing is continued.
Comments (9)
Posted by: iBlogWestHartford | August 12, 2009 7:51 AM
"There's nothing potentially hazardous about a lemonade stand."
Obviously, he's never tasted lemonade made by unsupervised 7-year olds.
QUESTION: How many people have ever gotten ill from Food Not Bombs servings? Has anyone got FACTS to justify this crackdown? And how many towns have been sued by Bread Not Bombs customers who became ill?
If no one has gathered this data, OR if the answer is a simple "no," then these towns should stop the legal/head games and focus on meeting the other, and many, genuine needs of their residents.
In other words, Get a Life!
Posted by: bill | August 12, 2009 8:35 AM
"St. Vincent DePaul volunteered to open its kitchen to the group on Sunday's and the owner of the Buttonwood Tree agreed to be the qualified food operator for the weekly meal."
Sounds reasonable.
"Food Not Bombs believed such a compromise would violate their beliefs. "
Sound unreasonable. They obviously are not doing this to help people.
Posted by: robn | August 12, 2009 8:47 AM
Thank you Public Health Department! It is clearly healthier for hungry homeless people to pick their food out of bacteria laden dumpsters.
Posted by: Streever | August 12, 2009 9:46 AM
Bill:
Potlucks which are open to the public are common & openly allowed & perfectly legal.
The requirements from the state are asinine & pointless.
In this economy I hope that our health departments have more important work than harassing volunteers who feed people freely.
Posted by: patricia Kane | August 12, 2009 10:34 AM
Churches have regular potluck dinners, sometimes once a month or more. I don't recall any Public Health officials inspecting.
No one wants to endanger the public, but it's not clear why just because the event is "regular" that it requires being put into compliance with rules developed for commercial establishments.
Is this selective enforcement?
Posted by: m(A)tt | August 12, 2009 12:03 PM
When Mdidletown and other cities begin providing basic necessities like food and shelter, then they can begin to tell others how to provide.
Has anyone considered that maybe this "anonymous tip" came from a Chamber of Commerce concerned that too many poor folks eating out on Main St. might be effecting their property values?
Eat the rich.
Posted by: ACR | August 12, 2009 1:18 PM
Patricia Kane said:
>>don't recall any Public Health officials inspecting.
Well Patty, I take it you're not too active in your church or any other bonafide charitable organization that serves food under any circumstance, eh?
The local health dept. inspects at least once a year.
Same is true at other fraternal and civic sites with kitchens as well as most soup kitchens; two that I know of.
None of these groups are trying to sign up the homeless for some political end that has nothing to do with feeding the destitute.
Nor do any of them have an agenda other than "feed the poor" which is not the case with the group in question (FNB) and is undoubtedly the root cause of their problem in Middletown and elsewhere.
Google it.
FNB has run into trouble all over the country; they seem to have a talent as it regards pissing all the wrong people off.
Terrorist Watch List
They've even made it to the bigtime!
".....then placed the FBI's Central Texas "Terrorist Watch List" on the screen. On a list of approximately ten groups, Food Not Bombs was listed seventh...
Posted by: beantownbilly | August 13, 2009 5:55 PM
Let me think, when was the last time you went to a neighborhood potluck sponsored by a group with "BOMBS" in their name? I mean, thats all nice talk, but how 'bout some intellectual honesty in their agenda?
Posted by: PsiCop | August 30, 2009 1:56 PM
Any time food is distributed, public health is at risk. That Food Not Bombs would put its hyperlegalistic "beliefs" ahead of this fact, is irrational and irresponsible.
They need to grow up and start living in the real world ... in which pathogens CAN be passed around. Their beliefs are incapable of rendering people immune to their effects.