It’s finally spring.
It’s better to mow the lawn.
Otherwise, your town’s government may fine you thousands of dollars a day.
What’s worse, if you can’t pay the fine, they may forfeit Your home.
Six years ago, in Dunedin, Florida, Jim Ficken grew grass.
His mother had passed away and he had left town to take care of her property. He asks his friend to cut the grass, but the friend has passed away too!
In two months, Ficken was apart, so his grass was taller than 10 inches.
City officials began punishing him.
But they didn’t tell Fickin about it. When he finally returned, there was no notice of a $500 fine per day. Only when he met a “code enforcer” would he know he would get a “big bill.”
When the bill came it was $24,454.
Ficken quickly mowed his lawn. The city then won an additional $5,000 for “non-compliance.”
Fickin didn’t have much money, so city officials said he would take him to his house.
Fortunately, Ficken has discovered the Institute of Justice (IJ), a libertarian law firm that fights government abuse.
IJ’s lawyer Ari Bargil took on the Ficken case and argued that the $30,000 fine violated the constitutional restrictions on “excessive bail, fines and cruel punishment.”
But the judge Domination The fine is “not excessive.”
Of course, the judges are lawyers with robes. Often they are lawyers/bureaucrats who have become very comfortable with the large government.
I’ll call a $30,000 penalty for not cutting your lawn Absurd Excessive.
IJ Lawyer Bergill I said Local news station, “If $30,000 is not too much for tall grass in Florida, what’s hard to imagine.”
Dunedin politicians often pose heavy fines for minor crimes.
One resident told us, “They [fined] $32,000 in a hole that is a quarter-sized by my stucco, and “for my yard mower…
That happens elsewhere too.
Charlotte, North Carolina fine Church for “over-pruning.”
Danbury, Connecticut, indicted a resident. $200,000 Leave his garden nasty.
“It’s clear that code enforcement is the main cash cow,” Bergill said.
In just five and a half years, Dunedin raised a $3.6 million fine.
But by then, I and others had noticed. We were reporting Dunedin’s heavy fine.
So did the politicians secretly admit that they were squeezing citizens with excessive fines and repaying the money?
Of course it’s not. They hired a PR company. That cost is a separate cost for taxpayers $25,000 month.
Politicians are primarily concerned with themselves.
After the Judiciary Institute filed a second lawsuit, Dunedin agreed to allow Fickin to pay less: $10,000.
It’s still too much, but Ficken agreed.
“Our founders recognize that the ability to impose fines is a crippling ability, which is one other than incarceration that governments can truly suppress.”
Governments are routinely suppressed. For six years, Dunedin politicians suppressed Jim Ficken.
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