Bill McGurn Makes My Blood Boil
Well, not Bill himself, but his column today in the Wall Street Journal.
Twenty-six years ago, Bill relates, an Episcopal church in New Jersey started a soup kitchen. Now almost three dozen churches, including Bill's, participate in Morristown's Community Soup Kitchen and Outreach Center.
The result is a hot meal to anyone who comes to the door each noon, no questions asked. This the men and women of the Community Soup Kitchen have provided for 26 years, not once missing a day.
Until now.
You see, the Morristown Division of Health has ruled that the soup kitchen must from now on conduct itself as a "retail" food establishment under New Jersey law. The new ruling will raise the soup kitchen's cost by $150,000 a year and make it impossible for people to contribute food they've prepared at home--"no more homemade meat loaf, lasagna, cakes and so forth."
Finally, there's the utter soullessness of the thing. For example, many of the women would bring their own aprons from home. No more. Now it's all latex gloves, throw-away aprons, and a ban on food servers even entering the kitchen. In short, more institutional cafeteria than Grandma's house.
At a time of high unemployment, in other words, the bureaucrats have chosen to make it more expensive and more difficult for ordinary Americans to help their citizens in need. And the liberals wonder what the Tea Party is so angry about.
"On a 1995 trip to New Delhi,"Bill writes in closing,
Hillary Clinton visited an orphanage run by Mother Teresa's nuns. She came away impressed by the great love and care she found there. With no small irony, she noted it was a place that "would not have passed inspection in the U.S."
At least not in Morristown.
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May '10
Re: Bill McGurn Makes My Blood Boil
Isn't that the plan, to replace our individual compassion with that of the regulated state? See, these churches can't meet the standards! And since the need still exists then the state - and only their SEIU or AFSCME represented employees can do this properly!
Jun '10
Re: Bill McGurn Makes My Blood Boil
It's not just in New Jersey. The SC DHEC nearly shut down our church's lunch bag mission because we had not been formally inspected. It had been started by a single mom to give back to the community. It grew from 10 lunches once a week to 50 lunches six days a week. It is totally funded through individual donations and manned by volunteers.
Dec '10
Re: Bill McGurn Makes My Blood Boil
Tyranny. Straight up. Pass the duct tape.
Oct '10
Re: Bill McGurn Makes My Blood Boil
This, unfortunately, a wonderful illustration of the perils of the administrative state that you discussed with Dr. Rahe in your recent excellent Uncommon Knowledge interview, Peter.
This is also the podcast where I learned that that the academic discipline of public administration apparently originated from the German influenced progressive era. I remember the Max Weber discussions at the time I was in public administration graduate school, but didn't connect the dots until that podcast. I feel...unclean now.
Aug '10
Re: Bill McGurn Makes My Blood Boil
Certainly there was a tremendous uptick in food-borne diseases coming out of that kitchen, prompting this new regime of inspections.
What, you say there wasn't?
Well maybe those health regulations are too stringent then. Maybe we should start a campaign to repeal those health rules, because they are obviously over-engineered.
May '10
Re: Bill McGurn Makes My Blood Boil
Bottom line, a headline or angle you will not see:
Aug '10
Re: Bill McGurn Makes My Blood Boil
This is even more outrageous than this story about a Massachusetts fishing boat captain who accidentally netted an 800 pound tuna while trawling for other species.
Although he had a permit for tuna and reported the catch to the relevant federal agency by radio, when he got to the dock, the Feds confiscated the tuna because, you see, it wasn't caught on a hook and line, it was caught in a net.
There's a happy ending: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will sell the big fish overseas and tuck the proceeds into its own slush fund.
Re: Bill McGurn Makes My Blood Boil
As you can imagine, I'm hearing from lots of people with similar stories. The town appears to be telling people the story is wrong, that it's the state's fault. It's true that it's a state law, but it's not clear who decided to apply it to the kitchen. In any case all this might have been helped if the officials at Morristown actually spoke to me when I called more than three times. They clearly just didn't want to talk to the press. And we can see why.
Re: Bill McGurn Makes My Blood Boil
On the other hand, here's a video tweeted by the Department of Homeland Security. I think they are trying to avoid a repeat of a similar incident at a Robinson Family Thanksgiving.
May '10
Re: Bill McGurn Makes My Blood Boil
Brilliant!
So sad we have to even discuss this.
May '10
Re: Bill McGurn Makes My Blood Boil
Bill - at least State Farm enlisted Capt. Kirk to do their PSA. Maybe Peter can watch this one, too.
Jun '10
Re: Bill McGurn Makes My Blood Boil
By this logic, ALL church meal providers should be illegal nationwide. This IS tyranny. What happened to separation of church and state that they so dearly want? Why do people go there so regularly if it is so darn dangerous to eat there? I'm sickened by this.
Apr '11
Re: Bill McGurn Makes My Blood Boil
So is Chris Christie the New Jersey Bull going to fix this stupidity, by granting some sort of waver or telling the inspectors to back down?
Sep '10
Re: Bill McGurn Makes My Blood Boil
Idiotic bureaucracy and over-regulation makes my teeth hurt.
But you can draw a direct line from foolishness like this to the out-of-control tort system and trial lawyers (ambulance chasers) found in most of our 50 states. The Camden regulators wouldn't even consider this without the constant threat of legal action or community organizers who are empowered by the courts. You can't chalk it all up to nanny-state busy-bodies trying to ensure their own job security. They are too lazy and unimaginative.
If these nuisance lawsuits were laughed out of court, along with a hefty bill for "loser pays" then there would be much less incentive for state regulators to act absent a demonstrable problem.
Apr '11
Re: Bill McGurn Makes My Blood Boil
I worked in the restaurant industry for a number of years, and at the end of the night we usually had leftover side dishes (mashed potatoes, rice, dinner rolls, etc.) For quality reasons it was better to just toss it all out and start fresh the next night. Well in every place I worked, I'd ask if maybe we could donate this perfectly good food (which we charged a fortune for) to a shelter. The response in every restaurant in different areas of the country: can't afford the liability.
So it's either over-regulated or over-lawyered.
Apr '11
Re: Bill McGurn Makes My Blood Boil
So how many meals have been served in those 26 years and how many reported cases of food poisoning have resulted? Is the rate substantially worse than government-run cafeterias?
Sep '10
Re: Bill McGurn Makes My Blood Boil
A few months ago, I took my 3-year old daughter with me to the barber shop. When we arrived, she was excited to get her own haircut. So I asked the (female) barber if she would mind sitting my little girl in the chair and just touching up her bangs. That earned me a horrified look and demurral that she wasn't "licensed" as a hair-dresser. I should go down the street to the women's hair salon. "Can't you just go through the motions? Just comb and air-snip? I'm happy to pay full rate." Again, the horrified look, "I could lose my license for that!"
The whole incident made me see red. Not her fault - I had to blame some faceless moron in Sacramento.
Aug '10
Re: Bill McGurn Makes My Blood Boil
I quit volunteering at a church soup kitchen because of something like this. Not that it was the church's fault, but I simply couldn't stand it.
The university catering leftovers that we students were thrilled to get in the dining halls the day after were decreed by some bureaucrat to be no longer good enough for a soup kitchen. All that waste...
Edited on Nov 22, 2011 at 2:08pmJan '11
Re: Bill McGurn Makes My Blood Boil
One does see this played out over and over again. Charities, bake sales, lemonade stands. I'm convinced this isn't just bone-headed, well intentioned regulators - they're doing it on purpose. This is all about making the state bigger.
Aug '10
Re: Bill McGurn Makes My Blood Boil
One word:
Toast.