Nanny State of the Week: Florida county sends environmental specialist to investigate BBQ
By Eric Boehm | Watchdog.org
Hardly anything screams “summer in America” more than the smell of meat roasting on an open grill.
Shutterstock image
NO BBQ FOR YOU: The smell of barbecue has landed one Florida man in trouble with his local authorities, who reportedly sent an “environmental specialist” to inspect his grill and then ordered him to contain the smell to his own property
But the smell of barbecue has landed one Florida man in trouble with local authorities, who reportedly sent an “environmental specialist” to inspect his grill. The specialist then ordered him to contain the smell to his own property.
How he’s supposed to do that? Good question.
As The Week magazine suggests, if you want to barbecue in Pinellas County, Florida, you better be endowed with the powers of Aeolus, the Greek god of the winds.
The interaction between a group of men and Joe Graham, the Pinellas County environmental specialist, was filmed and has gone viral on the Internet.
In the video, Graham somehow manages to keep a straight face while explaining the rules.
“I can smell it again right now, but I’m on your property,” the official tells the group. “You’re allowed to have it smell on your property, so that doesn’t count, but when I’m on the street, that’s when it counts.”
One of the men asks, incredulously, how he can comply with the order to keep the smell from wafting.
“So we’re supposed to control the smoke, and the wind, and the way it’s blowing,” he asks. He later tells Graham two of the men have lived in the house (and barbecuing) for 40 years, without incident.
If a significant number of complaints are made, an inspector can be asked to witness the problem and may issue an official “Warning Letter” (capitalized by the county so you know officials are serious).
That seems to be exactly what happened here. Graham, in the video, tells he two men a neighbor has made a series of complaints about the grill. Whether this neighbor tried to do the neighborly thing and talk to them about their grill, before involving the nanny skills and brute force of the state, is unknown.
The whole issue revolves around so-called “nuisance laws,” a common refrain in this space. We detailed some of the problems with these vague, intrusive laws that often give government officials carte blanche to crush property rights and generally engage in nanny state activity.
The video of the incident, posted to Facebook by a user named Scotty Jordan, can be viewed below. Just a warning, there’s a small bit of strong language — most of which seems appropriate, in context.
Video of pinellas county environmentalist saying bbq smoke out of your yard is illegal! Had to record!
Congratulations, Pinellas County environmental officials — you’ve managed to ruin an American summertime institution.
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