The Law Is A Meatheaded Ass
Sponsels Minnesota Harvest Orchard is one of my family's favorite summer and autumn diversions. It's a great place to take the family to pick your own apples, let the kids run around, nosh with the locals, send your daughter on a horseback ride - it's a great little family day getaway.
The spring weather was hell on apples, leaving the Jordan-area institution digging for ways to dig out. They hit on a series of outdoor concerts.
And then they ran up against the niggling, petty wall of the Scott County bureaucracy.
A judge's order Wednesday put an end to an ambitious music series at a Scott County apple orchard -- and, perhaps, to the orchard as well.
Scott County District Judge Rex Stacey ruled that a "Pickin' in the Dark" concert series, which for two weekends brought big-name acts to Minnesota Harvest Apple Orchard, be halted until the orchard's owners obtain a proper county permit for the venture.
But John (Topper) Sponsel, whose family owns the orchard near Jordan, said that the family won't pursue permit changes and will pull the plug on the music series, initially intended to run into October. The orchard operation is $2 million in debt, he said, and the county acted unfairly.
"We got cheated," Sponsel said of the judge's order and the county's actions. "That should be in capital letters."
County planning and zoning authorities worry that the concerts will draw excessive traffic to the orchard - which happens to be located in the middle of farging nowhere, far from any towns and many inhabitants of any kind.
The Sponsels have spent twenty-odd years building up a great local business. To be stymied - and driven out of business - by the moronic wheels of county government is a screaming shame.
Scott County: Stick to harassing daycares, OK?
Posted by Mitch at
July 28, 2005 12:09 PM
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Just sniping here Mitch... but,
It's interesting that one person's "beaurocratic intrusion" is anothers urgently needed law. Case in point, the ability to use the Patriot Act on normal criminal defendants/suspects....
I think Scott County is probably doing Sponnsels a real disservice, but I suspect they made their decision the way most rural governments do, they found out which influential member of their community cared the most and then agreed with their input. That's not government then, it's government as a tool, which is all it ever is. Demonizing beaurocracy is like blaming the river for the floods.
PB
Posted by: PB at July 28, 2005 02:56 PMSomeone is wound way too tight. More fiber in the diet perhaps....may I suggest apples?
Posted by: carmellita at July 29, 2005 01:08 AMThey need to leave Topper alone. That place has been in his family forever and its provided wonderful memories for so many. It also brings business to Scott County. Topper is just trying to make ends meet and someone is picking him to death.
Maybe it has more to do with "Emma Krumbees". They have stepped up the competition in recent years. Butthey still don't have the warmth Minnesota Harvest does IMHO. Emma's however,has an awesome chicken dinner-best around. Great pie too.....worth the drive: )
Yeah, sure, you guys scoff at these hard working public servants enforcing the most necessary and essential public safety laws. But we're lucky to have them diligently guarding us, unlike the simple folks of Bethel, New York, who let old man Yasgur have a few bands up at his farm in 1969. Woodstock! With Hippies! And Drugs! It could happen here, you know. It could!
We can't be having that kind of thing in healthy, wholesome Scott County, we need to have permits and parking and porta-potty plans presented to the public and approved by politicians at planning and zoning. It's for the children.
Todays eight-year-olds are tomorrow's teenagers, you know. We have a duty to protect them from this kind of wild, crazy apple munchin and country music listenin'. Gotta nip it, I say. Nip it in the bud!
Posted by: nathan bissonette at July 29, 2005 03:49 PM.
I think Nathan Bissonette needs to get a life!
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