Article from Reason by Baylen Linnekin.

An unconscionable attack on private property rights has occurred in Florida. An article in Reason covered this issue in length:

…

One of the most egregious examples I highlighted comes from an ongoing case in Miami Shores, Fla. There, Hermine Ricketts and her husband, Laurence Carroll, had kept a nicely manicured vegetable garden in their front yard for nearly two decades. Then, in 2013, Miami Shores adopted an ordinance that banned vegetable gardens, and vowed to fine violators each day they failed to comply with the law.

The couple sued, arguing, as a local CBS affiliate put it, “that the ordinance ran afoul of the Florida Constitution, including that it violated their privacy rights and their right to acquire, possess and protect property.”

…

“Though [the plaintiffs’] claims seem compelling, the trial court’s well-reasoned, ten-page final order rejecting the appellants’ claims correctly acknowledged the difficult procedural posture confronting the appellants and dutifully applied controlling precedent,” the appeals court held.

…

“In Miami Shores, it is perfectly fine to grow fruit, build a pool, or park a boat in your front yard,” says Ari Bargil, an attorney with the Institute for Justice, which represents Ricketts and Carroll, in an email to me in the wake of the court’s ruling. “But this decision holds that it[‘s] perfectly rational for a City to prohibit vegetable gardens, while permitting virtually everything else.”

Read the entire article at Reason.

Image Credit: By Srl (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons