Legal Absurdities

It was just a farmer’s market. A small one. One with pretentions for grandeur.

First, they informed all the vendors that if they wanted to participate, they must be compliant with all “regulations”.

Now, in the first place, regulations are NOT LAW. They are guidelines. Recommendations. Not even exactly legal requirements since they aren’t EVEN Civil Law. Just something that the state harasses you about until you give in and let them enforce them on you. Sigh.

But the farmer’s market board does not understand this, and does not want to. They require that all vendors sign that they will be in compliance with regulations (and the regulations are specified). These regulations require licensing for some things.

They also burden the vendors with many unreasonable requirements, and some reasonable ones. That isn’t what this is about, really, but it just goes along with officiousness where it impedes the intent of the event. They can’t quite figure out that their primary purpose is to help people honestly earn from local sales. They have to make sure that the vendors only do it in an “approved” way, and that they sell only the things that the board thinks will make the market look good. This year EVERY SINGLE ITEM that you sold had to be approved by them, and even if you wanted to bring ANOTHER item that they had already approved for someone else, they did not want you to sell it unless YOU were personally approved to sell that thing!

All this bother for a TWO HOUR PER WEEK market!

It’s $25 for the entire season. Most people just give in. Just like the government.

We get to the farmer’s market and there is a big sign there. “Food sold here has not been regulated, licensed, certified or inspected.”

Wait a minute.

They REQUIRED it to be “regulated”.

Some vendors CHOOSE to license, seek certifications, or invite inspections. Some vendors are PROFESSIONALS who choose to do that. Some are PROFESSIONALS who choose not to!

But after requiring the vendors to DO SO, they now warn the public that it HAS NOT BEEN DONE.

So when an entity decides to ENFORCE regulations on independent vendors, they do not DECREASE their own liability, they INCREASE IT. Because THEY have now ASSUMED the role of ENFORCING it. Voluntarily.

If they really wanted to avoid being sued, they would simply say, “All legal compliance is the responsibility of the vendor, the market entity is not responsible for enforcing any legal or regulatory compliance.” and leave it at that. This is the escape route, rather than taking it on, along with the entire load of liability.

But to then declare that NO regulation (or other compliance) has been done is not merely an insult to their vendors, it is a further invitation for suit. The vendors can sue them for posting a false declaration. The CUSTOMERS can sue them for misleading statements.

Kinda dumb. They want to control so badly that they do it backward in both directions.

I made enough to justify the $25 fee, the transportation, and the time to get there. Barely.

I predict that next year they will have another layer of impeding controls laid down upon the unsuspecting vendors who really just want to bring part of a local business into the public eye long enough each week to increase their earnings.

Keep it up farmer’s markets. You’ll eventually put YOURSELF out of business.