Tag: american lawn cult

Village tries to fine Long Island woman who replaced lawn with native plants

“That front yard look hideous”

Xilin Zhang overhauled her front lawn with native plants in New Hyde Park.

“It’s a very natural look,” she said. “There’s tons of butterflies and bees and birds coming … It’s not just some grass doing nothing.” 

It’s the outgrowth of a Town of North Hempstead grant to encourage native plant gardens. But Zhang was told her yard clashes with the village code, and she received a summons with a fine up of $2,000. 

The village mayor, bluntly, said Zhang’s yard was “hideous.”

“When ugly is that overwhelming, you have to call it what it is. That front yard looks hideous,” Mayor Christopher Devane said. 

After four rounds in court, the village and Zhang reached a compromise. The summons was dismissed, but the garden must stay below 4 feet. 

“We need to move away from big green lawns”

Native plant advocates in Port Washington launched a movement to get suburbanites to ditch their lawns. Gardens, like Zhang’s, have more attractive benefits, they say. 

“Sustainable gardens are not just beautiful for the eye. They protect our drinking water,” Mindy Germain, Port Washington’s water commissioner, said. “We’re trying to move away from these big green lawns that are sucking up too much water from our aquifer.” 

“There are lots of towns on Long Island which are encouraging people to put in wild flowers because they don’t want all that pollution going into the bay,” Raju Rajan, president of Rewild Long Island, said. 

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Lawn Gone Liberty: The Update

It’s finally spring.

Better mow your lawn.

If you don’t, your town government may fine you thousands of dollars a day. 

Worse, if you can’t pay the fine, they may confiscate your home.

Six years ago, in Dunedin, Florida, Jim Ficken let his grass grow. 

His mom had died, and he’d left town to take care of her estate. He asked a friend to cut his grass, but that friend died, too!

In the two months Ficken was away, his grass grew taller than 10 inches.

City bureaucrats started fining him.

But they didn’t tell Ficken that. When he finally got back, there was no notice of the $500-a-day fine. Only when he ran into a “code enforcement officer” did he learn he’d be getting “a big bill.”

When the bill came, it was for $24,454.

Ficken quickly mowed his lawn. Then the city tacked on another $5,000 for “non-compliance.”

Ficken didn’t have that much money, so city officials told him they would take his home.

Fortunately, Ficken discovered the libertarian law firm, the Institute for Justice, which fights government abuse.

IJ lawyer Ari Bargil took on Ficken’s case, arguing that the $30,000 fine violates the Constitution’s limits on “excessive bail, fines, and cruel punishments.”

But a judge ruled that the fine was “not excessive.” 

Of course, judges are just lawyers with robes. Often they are lawyer/bureaucrats who’ve become very comfortable with big government.

I call a $30K penalty for not cutting your lawn absurdly excessive, 

IJ attorney Bargil told local news stations, “If $30,000 for tall grass in Florida is not excessive, it is hard to imagine what is.”

Dunedin’s politicians often impose heavy fines for minor transgressions.

One resident told us, “They fined me $32,000 for a hole the size of a quarter in my stucco … For a lawn mower in my yard … They fine people they can pick on … and they keep picking on them.” 

It happens elsewhere, too.

Charlotte, North Carolina, fined a church for “excessive pruning.”

Danbury, Connecticut, charged a resident $200,000 for leaving his yard messy.

Bargil notes, “It’s pretty apparent that code enforcement is a major cash cow.”

In just five-and-a-half years, Dunedin collected $3.6 million in fines. 

But by then, I and others had noticed. We were reporting on Dunedin’s heavy fines. 

So did the politicians sheepishly acknowledge that they had milked citizens with excessive fines and give the money back?

Of course not. They hired a PR firm. That cost taxpayers another $25,000 a month.

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The Greenwich Noise Ordinance Hypocrisy

Effective May 24 at 6:00pm, the use of gas-powered leaf blowers, with a few exceptions, became prohibited on residential properties until September 30. This restriction specifically targets gas-powered leaf blowers. Beginning in 2025, individuals found in violation may face fines of $100 for a first offense and $249 for subsequent offenses.

The new ordinance passed at the Representative Town Meeting (RTM), the Town’s legislative body, in January.

If you drive around Greenwich, chances are you have observed first-hand that landscapers and even some residents are continuing to use their gas-powered leaf blowers, whether in defiance of the ordinance or perhaps they are completely unaware of what the RTM has mandated.

To be clear this is not intended to “rat out” or “snitch” on neighbors in the hopes they draw fines.

However, it is important to point out a bit of the hypocrisy when it comes to the equal application of the ordinance, also known as the “rules for thee but not for me” mentality.

On this particular morning, a Greenwich resident who happened to be driving up Glenville Street toward King Street snapped a few photos of landscapers using at least two gas-powered back pack leaf blowers and a larger leaf blower toward the rear of the property. The landscaping truck had New York license plates.

Based on the photos, the address was identified and an online search of the property was performed.

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Florida Man’s Tall Grass Saga Comes to an End

Retiree Jim Ficken can finally breathe easy. After six years, two lawsuits, and harrying legal wrangling over a $30,000 fine for tall grass in Dunedin, Florida, a new settlement has brought him closure.

The agreement, announced on April 22, ends the city’s pursuit to recover $10,000 in attorney fees that Dunedin officials tried to characterize as “administrative expenses” after reducing Ficken’s original fine by 80 percent. The reduction was only possible because of reforms the city instituted soon after Ficken filed his first lawsuit.

Initially, the city attempted to tack on $25,000 for out-of-pocket legal expenses before realizing it had miscalculated that figure. As a result of this settlement, Ficken will not have to cough up any amount for bogus fees—an important consolation following setbacks in his first lawsuit.

Ficken attempted to reason with code enforcers before going to court—explaining that his lawn had grown long while he was settling his late mother’s estate in South Carolina and that the landscaper he had hired to mow his grass while he was gone had died unexpectedly. He asked for leniency, but the city refused to budge and insisted on full payment: $500 per day for nearly two months, plus interest. They even put liens on Ficken’s home and authorized city attorneys to initiate proceedings to seize it.

In response, Ficken filed a federal lawsuit with representation from the Institute for Justice, asserting that the excessive fines and lack of due process violated his Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. He lost in district court in 2021 and again in 2022 at the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals—but he won in other ways. His case ignited a media frenzy and public calls for reform, prompting Dunedin to overhaul its code enforcement regime to prevent ruinous fines for trivial offenses.

After his legal battles, Ficken managed to get the fines reduced enough to prevent foreclosure. He thought he was safe. But then the city hit him with the bill for attorney fees, a retroactive attempt to penalize him for seeking his day in court. Left with no choice, he sued again in 2023.

The city could have avoided both lawsuits merely by treating Ficken like a neighbor instead of a cash machine.

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Man Killed by Police, His Home Burned After SWAT Team Shows Up Over Tall Grass

Because the state claims the ability to tell you what you can and cannot do with your own property, often times, we see utterly ridiculous government overreach for simple issues like tall grass. In the land of the free, people have faced insane fines, been arrested, and have even had the state attempt to steal their entire home — over the length of their grass. Never, however, have we seen someone die because of it — until now.

This week, Austin police attempted to serve a warrant to man whose grass was too long. It resulted in a standoff, shots fired, a house fire, and that man’s death.

According to police, code enforcers showed up to his residence at 9:16 a.m. on Wednesday to serve the nuisance warrant over his tall grass. A grass cutting crew was with the government agents and they were prepared to forcibly mow the man’s grass.

But he never came to the door.

After their attempts to contact the man failed, city workers began mowing his grass. An hour later, shots rang out from inside his home.

“And they immediately backed off. They got all of the staff that was working on the house to safety and and a SWAT call was initiated for a barricaded subject,” Austin Police Chief Joseph Chacon said.

An area lockdown ensued after officers and a crisis negotiator attempted unsuccessfully to get the man to exit peacefully. An hours-long standoff ensued after their attempts failed.

“SWAT spent the next several hours trying to negotiate with the individual to just simply come out of the house,” Chacon said.

But the man did not come out. Instead, according to police, he began firing at officers so they sent in a SWAT robot.

At about 3 p.m., the resident started shooting at officers again. “And because of that immediate threat … they made entry using a robot,” Chacon said.

According to police, the robot determined that the man had started a fire inside but attempts to have him exit remained unsuccessful.

Finally, after flames began to engulf the home, according to police, the man came out of the garage “with weapons in his hand,” and “at that time, a SWAT officer shot and struck the resident who went down with a gunshot wound,” Chacon said.

Austin Police spokesperson Jose Mendez did not identify the man, who later died at the hospital. He only stated that he was a white man in his 50s.

“They attempted to cut the lawn for him, and this is the reaction they got,” Mendez said.

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80yo Army Vet Facing Fines, Jail for Butterfly Garden He Planted in His Front Yard

In the Land of the Free, as TFTP frequently reports, attempting to use your own property in a manner that suits you but not the government, can and will land you in hot water. Dennis Moriarty offered up his life to preserve the ostensible freedom in this land yet he is now finding out that “freedom” under tyranny is not freedom at all. His “crimes” in this new tyrannical world? Planting a flower garden in his own yard.

Moriarty, an 80-year-old Army veteran who loves butterflies, spends his days looking out from his porch into his 1,500 square foot garden in his front yard. He loves this garden as he’s spent countless hours planting native plants to attract butterflies.

The garden consists of milkweed, coneflowers, culver’s root, buttonbush, and other native flowers that aid in attracting bees and butterflies. As KansasCity.com points out, however, this beauty comes with a price — thanks to government.

“It’s not only gorgeous, but beneficial, using less water than conventional grass, for one thing. Yet the city has ordered him to either cut it down or wind up in court. That’s because Moriarty’s flowers are several inches higher than the 10 inches allowed in the city code against common nuisance.

With all the challenges Kansas City faces — gun violence, homelessness, crumbling abandoned buildings, the lack of affordable housing, trashy vacant lots and so much more — we have one question: Huh?”

Despite actual crime running rife throughout the city, the code enforcers are out in full force to make sure 80-year-old vets don’t have tall flowers. So, after wasting tax payer money to stake out Moriarty’s yard and photograph what he thought were “weeds,” code inspector Leon Bowman told Moriarty that he has 10 days to cut these “weeds” or else.

If Moriarty doesn’t cut his flowers, he will be subject to fines and eventually — if he resists this extortion — a warrant will be issued for his arrest and he will be kidnapped and caged.

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Study shows common insecticide is harmful in any amount

A new UC Riverside study shows that a type of insecticide made for commercial plant nurseries is harmful to a typical bee even when applied well below the label rate.

The study was published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

Chemically similar to nicotine, neonicotinoids are insecticides that protect against plant-consuming insects like aphids, but seriously harm beneficial insects, like bees. They are widely used by commercial growers.

Much research has focused on their use in food crops like canola, in which they are typically applied at low doses. However, this study is one of the few to examine neonicotinoid application in potted ornamental plants, which can represent more potent, acute sources of exposure to the toxin for bees.

“Neonicotinoids are often used on food crops as a seed treatment,” explained UCR entomologist and lead study author Jacob Cecala. “But they’re usually applied in higher amounts to ornamental plants for aesthetic reasons. The effects are deadly no matter how much the plants are watered.”

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RESEARCH: Dandelion leaf extract blocks spike proteins from binding to the ACE2 cell surface receptor

The engineered spike proteins from SARS-CoV-2 can be STOPPED by a common “weed” that is exterminated from lawns every year. A German university study found that the common dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) can block spike proteins from binding to the ACE2 cell surface receptors in human lung and kidney cells. The water-based dandelion extract, taken from the plant’s dried leaves, was effective against spike protein D614 and a host of mutant strains, including D614G, N501Y, K417N and E484K.

Dandelion extract blocks SARS CoV-2 spike proteins and their variants

The researchers used high molecular weight compounds taken from a water-based dandelion extract and put them to the test in human HEK293-hACE2 kidney and A549-hACE2-TMPRSS2 lung cells. The dandelion blocked the protein-to-protein interactions between the S1 sub unit of the spike protein and the human ACE2 cell surface receptor. This effect was also true against the spike protein mutations from the predominant variants in circulation, including the United Kingdom (B.1.1.7), South African (B.1.351) and Brazilian (P.1) variant.

The dandelion extract stopped SARS-CoV-2 spike pseudotyped lentivirus particles from attaching to lung cells and stopped an inflammatory process called interleukin-6 secretion. Because the study was conducted in vitro, further clinical studies are needed to understand how the dandelion extract is absorbed and utilized in biological systems of the human body.

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Popular weed killer impairs insect immune systems, raising malaria risk

Unexpected new findings from researchers at Johns Hopkins University are indicating the world’s most commonly used herbicide appears to weaken the immune systems of insects. One experiment with mosquitos known to spread malaria suggests the chemical can increase the insect’s susceptibility to parasitic infection, possibly increasing risk of human disease transmission.

Glyphosate is a weed-killer that has been in wide agricultural use since the 1970s. It kills plants by disrupting a crucial metabolic process called the shikimate pathway. The pathway is only present in plants, so for many years glyphosate was thought to be an ideal herbicide – harmless to everything but plants.

Over recent years, however, concerns have been raised over the chemical’s effect on the surrounding environment and humans. Austria and Vietnam were two of the first countries to outright ban the herbicide, while several others are undergoing a staged phase-out of its use over the coming years.

The effects of glyphosate on insects is still a source of much debate. Studies have found the herbicide can disrupt gut bacteria in insects, and this can lead to behavioral or physiological changes. A new study is suggesting glyphosate could impair immunity in insects, and this may lead to damaging consequences for human health.

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