But I like hot sauce! And dogs!

Liberals love to belittle complaints about government tyranny. Predictably, they say that those who are annoyed by tyranny are being “petty” — as if giving up freedom is the sort of thing to be expected in the modern progressive world, and if you don’t like it, you are backward and in need of consciousness raising.

Well, I think that if you have despite all odds built up a business, and survived the endless regulatory hassles to the point of being successful, government ought to respect that and leave you alone.

What a backward idea that is.

Today I saw two examples of businesses I like being squashed. The first is Sriracha Hot Sauce. I always keep a bottle in my fridge, and I have for years. Well, a small number of whining, sniveling neighbors (the sort of people who can be depended upon to be “allergic” to anything) have sicced Big Brother on the factory, which will probably have to shut down:

Bad news for lovers of Sriracha sauce. A Los Angeles County court has ordered the maker of the iconic chili sauce to partially cease operations until it can get the allegedly eye-watering, heartburn-inducing odors its plant produces under control. The city of Irwindale sued Huy Fong Foods after residents living near a major Sriracha plant complained that spicy smells were giving them runny noses, headaches, and in one case, more nosebleeds.

Huy Fong says that its own workers have never complained about being close to the production of the sauce, made from jalapeño peppers, vinegar, sugar, salt and garlic. As we reported in October when the lawsuit was first filed, the move could pose a problem for supplies of Sriracha.

Because Huy Fong only uses fresh chilies that need to be processed within a day of being picked, the company processes all of the over 100 million plus pounds of chilies it uses during a two to three month window in the fall, as the chilies ripen. A partial shutdown of its 665,000-square-foot (about 61,780 square meters) plant in Irwindale right now could cripple production for the year ahead, and force Huy Fong to leave chilies to rot.

Great. So that means we will just have to settle for hot sauce made in other countries where governments don’t empower whining idiots to shut down anything they don’t like.

The other item that fried me involved something else I like.

Dogs and dog kennels.

This one had been there for many years, but now that whining urbanites have moved in nearby, like the neighbors of the hot sauce company they too are siccing the bureaucrats on the kennel owners:

Christie and Larry Knox are not the first to be confronted with people moving into a rural area and demanding that it change. But they certainly are among the most sympathetic.

The Knoxes run a kennel in western Henrico, just as they have for more than four decades. The dogs at the kennel bark, just as dogs always do. Nobody used to complain, because for many years the Knoxes didn’t have many neighbors. But over time their once-bucolic surroundings turned into another swatch of suburbia.

And the Knoxes — neither of them spring chickens anymore — have been beset by complaints. Recently, after a county inspector came by for a sound check, the Knoxes were convicted of violating the county’s noise ordinance — something that also came along long after the kennel.

The elderly couple is stuck between a rock and a hard place. “We begged the developers (of nearby residential communities) to provide more of a (sound) buffer, but nothing happened,” says Christie Knox. They might put in some sound buffers themselves, but county zoning rules won’t allow that because the kennel is now a “non-conforming use.”

I guess they should consider themselves lucky that the government didn’t simply seize their land and hand it over to the developers. (Of course, the local fatcats may have decided that it’s cheaper to wage a war of bureaucratic attrition until they pack up and leave.)

There used to be a slogan, “All politics is local.” I guess the more tyrannical politics becomes, it ought to be “All tyranny is local.”

Except it’s not. Tyranny is now imposed from the top down to the bottom. There is no escaping it. Not even moving out to what you might have thought was the middle of nowhere.


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10 responses to “But I like hot sauce! And dogs!”

  1. c andrew Avatar
    c andrew

    Two similar incidents that I saw a number of years ago. The first was a dairy operation that had been in existence and held in the family for over a century. Then developers put apartments on adjoining land. Residents of which began to complain about the “stench.” Result? Eminent domained away at less than market values for “public health” reasons.

    2nd story; A farmer who has been farming land held in his family for over 100 years. Developers build subdivisions next door. Farmer continues in the time honored tradition of night-baling of hay.

    (You do it before the heavy dew settles, but after the sun sets and some moisture content rises in the cut alfalfa stalks – it strikes the balance between losing the nutritious leaves off of the alfalfa and having too much moisture that leads to mildew)

    Nigh boors make noise complaint. Urban cops assault farmer with pepper spray – charge him with resisting arrest.

    That autumn, when the prevailing winds are headed toward the subdivision, farmer and his friends disc field non-stop for 3 weeks, covering entire subdivision with a thick coating of grit.

    Next baling season? No noise complaints.

  2. c andrew Avatar
    c andrew

    My Policy Point is this: Grandfathering. If you build a residence next to a pigpen or a slaughterhouse then STFU about it. It was there. YOU CHOSE TO BUILD THE HOME WITH THESE CONDITIONS PRE-EXISTING. So any lawsuits initiated by the newcomer should be met with a frivolous designation, fine and legal reimbursement for the person so harassed.

  3. Captain Ned Avatar
    Captain Ned
  4. c andrew Avatar
    c andrew

    Now that’s a nice story, Cap’n!

  5. Captain Ned Avatar
    Captain Ned

    Laid in a reserve supply of Sriracha just now. Only 1 bottle left at my local Hannafords.

  6. Veeshir Avatar

    They came for Srirachi but I liked Frank’s Red Hot so…….

  7. Alan Kellogg Avatar

    When somebody takes a wet dump in your punch bowl come talk to me.

  8. Man Mountain Molehill Avatar
    Man Mountain Molehill

    If you like your hot sauce you can keep you hot sauce.

  9. Gringo Avatar
    Gringo

    c andrew, good story about the hay baling. Unfortunately, the grandfathering clause would not apply to the Sriracha plant, as it moved there only a year or two ago. Which does not make the complaint any less stupid.

    I have read of neighbors complaining of various delectable aromas coming from restaurants or food processing plants. I used to live near a plant that processed coffee beans. The smell was delectable. Not so much the noise.

    For those Sriracha lovers who are afraid that there will be a future shortage, I would suggest that you make your own. Once or twice a month I purchase a pound or so of jalapenos or serrano hot peppers and pulverize them with vinegar in the blender. Let it age for a while, and add to food as desired. Add garlic as desired- though I do that to the food I am cooking, not to the salsa/sauce. I keep it in the refrigerator, but it wouldn’t be a bad idea to age them at room temperature for several days.

    Apparently Sriracha uses a similar process, as it also blends uncooked hot peppers with vinegar.

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