Food Cooperative Raided & Searched In Ohio

[DeSwiss]

Local food cooperative searched by state

The Morning Journal
Wednesday, December 3, 2008 6:42 AM EST
By MORNING JOURNAL STAFF - [email protected]

PITTSFIELD TOWNSHIP — An Ohio Department of Agriculture agent seized food, electronic devices and documents from a Pittsfield Township organic and natural food cooperative believed to be unlicensed, according to a search warrant filed yesterday in Lorain County Common Pleas Court. Jacqueline and John Stowers, owners of the Manna Storehouse, 43565 SR 303, were inspected in November 2007 by the Lorain County General Health District, according to court records.

On Monday, ODA enforcement agent William Lesho confiscated hundreds of pounds of processed beef and large amounts of lamb, turkey and other perishable products in addition to office files, a computer, two cell phones and other electronic devices, according to the search warrant inventory. The items were taken to establish the Stowers' ownership in any property, records of hidden wealth or illegal income and anything that would establish illegal activity, according to the search warrant affidavit. Jacqueline Stowers declined to comment because she had not seen the court papers yesterday evening.

A health district sanitarian and two other inspectors visited the cooperative on Nov. 30, 2007, to make observations and were told to leave. Jacqueline Stowers wrote in a December 2007 letter to the sanitarian that the inspectors never had permission to be on their property and that the Manna Storehouse is not operating a retail food establishment that requires a license. "We declare now that we do not want to be a 'licensed retail food establishment' or a 'food service operation' and we do not plan to become one in the future and that we will not knowingly conduct any activities that would require that type of licensing," she wrote.

The matter was forwarded to the Lorain County Prosecutor's Office after the Lorain County General Health District received her letter, according to court records.

http://www.morningjournal.com/articles/2008/12/03/news/mj309059.txt">LINK

- One in ten Americans http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE4B28CB20081203">are now using food stamps. And many elderly people on fixed incomes have for some time had to choose each month whether to buy the drugs they need to stay alive, or food.... to stay alive.

But cooperative food banks are not-for-profits by design. The whole point is to provide a source of food that people can afford and to hell with the corporate grocery chains. However, it is obvious that any farmer who is growing food for people and not expecting to profit by it -- is a criminal who must be stopped at all costs.

Because providing access to affordable foodstuffs, just isn't the Amurican Way.....
==============================================================================
DeSwiss


http://www.atheisttoolbox.com/">The Atheist Toolbox




"Prayer is just a way of telling god that his divine plan for
you is flawed -- and shockingly stingy" ~ Betty Bowers

[SpiralHawk]

1. Oh noes. People exercising free will and free choice with their diets.

Send in the Republicon Homelander Nanny State Fascist PatrolMonkeys to nip this in the bud, and to preserve the PROFITIBILITY of Genetically Modified Corporate Food-facsimile product producers & marketers.

Republicons like to claim they are 'conservatives' while they pursue radical economic policies that lead to fail, and radical environmental policies that lead to toxic crapola. Republicons like to claim they are against Nation Building, then they spend 8 long years throwing buckets of billions of our tax dollars into Nation Building in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And republicons like to claim they are against the Nanny State -- and then they occultly shove a big fat Nanny State down the gullet of America.

Ptoooey on republicon lies and totalitarianism. Give us back America.

[DeSwiss]

2. Not to mention....

...the chilling effect this will have on anyone having similar ideas of growing their own food to try to stay alive....

[madrchsod]

3. this source has what may have trigger the raid

http://thebovine.wordpress.com/2008/12/04/more-on-the-oda-manna-storehouse-raid/

other..

http://steveandpaularunyan.blogspot.com/2008/12/manna-storehouse-family-update.html

http://www.mannastorehouse.com/

[SpiralHawk]

5. Wow - the fascists sent in a SWAT team to arrest a family for...

...food.

"On Monday, December 1, a SWAT team with semi-automatic rifles entered the private home of the Stowers family in LaGrange, Ohio, herded the family onto the couches in the living room, and kept guns trained on parents, children, infants and toddlers, from approximately 11 AM to 8 PM. The team was aggressive and belligerent. The children were quite traumatized. At some point, the “bad cop” SWAT team was relieved by another team, a “good cop” team that tried to befriend the family.

"The Stowers family has run a very large, well-known food cooperative called Manna Storehouse..."

[DeSwiss]

Thanks!

“….The issue appears to be the discovery of a bit of non-institutional beef in an Oberlin College food service freezer a year ago that was tracked down by a county sanitation official to Manna Storehouse. Oberlin College’s student food coop is widely known for its strident ideological stance about eating organic foods. It seems that the Oberlin student food cooperative had joined the Manna Storehouse food cooperative in order to buy organic foods in bulk from the national organic food distributor United, which services buying clubs across the nation. The sanitation official, James Boddy, evidently contacted the Ohio Department of Agriculture. After the first contact by state ODA officials, Manna Storehouse reportedly wrote them a letter requesting assistance and guidelines for complying with the law. This letter was never answered. Rather, the ODA agent tried several times to infiltrate the coop, as described above. When his attempts failed, the SWAT team showed up!

So what this boils down to is that somebody's losing money and that's what's behind all of this.

- As always.

[Ms. Toad]

53. My first thought when I read the location,

was, "I bet OSCA (the student coop) is involved." Both organic foods and a desire to limit transporting food beyond 100 miles - with and the side benefit thumbing their nose at the government/corporations/etc.

I'll have to ask my daughter what the campus buzz is.

[quakerboy]

49. WTF

http://thebovine.wordpress.com/2008/12/06/manna-storehouse-swat-part-3/

In the copied comments section:

"Welcome to the Obamanation, folks. Get used to it. “


Cause Obama has anything to do with the Ohio Department of Ag/SWAT? Some people are nuts, I guess.

[MercutioATC]

4. That's literally 5 or 6 miles from my parents' house.

Very rural NE Ohio.

My parents have a small certified organic farm, but none of their produce goes there.

[DeSwiss]

7. If your parents sell....

...to "for-profit" vendors, then they're probably safe.

- For now....

[MercutioATC]

11. Nope, just to friends and the local farmers' market.

...and, like I said, they're certified organic and have a sales license.

[DeSwiss]

18. Well, I've actually run a food bank....

...at one time in my life. All of our food was purchased from local and area farmers. The cost was 50% to 75% less than similar foods purchased in grocery stores because of the bulk purchases, no tax (they charge tax on food here unless sold by a farmer) and no profit margins factored in.

My clients were all low-income families from the projects and most of the time we had more food leftover than the food bank members could use. So we gave that to the homeless shelter.

- So you can clearly see our criminality.

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

16. Pittsfield was wiped out by a tornado on Palm Sunday 1965

It was just a crossroad township then but it killed 4 people. the tornado went right through the intersection. i was living in Wellington at the time.

[MercutioATC]

20. I grew up outside of Wellington.

Right next to Echo Valley Golf Course on Quarry Rd.

...small world...

:hi:

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

24. it is a small world

been down quarry rd many times. we lived in town.

[Mist]

6. I hope this isn't a trend. I've been expecting something like this for a while, as

agra-business would like to close down alternative sources of food, as would the producers of Frankenfoods.

[SpiralHawk]

8. Unfortunately, it may well be a trend...

sigh...

"Shut up and eat your genetically mutant chemicalized, irradiated food-facsimile simulated nutrition-product."

- Corporate-Food Fascists

[Enthusiast]

42. And soon, the Soylent Green.

No worry, though, the Soylent Green will be made from genetically modified humans. :puke:

[kestrel91316]

45. WOW. Tomato "catfacing" run amok.

[DeSwiss]

9. Exactly.

You've hit the proverbial nail upon its head.

[G_j]

10. this needs some recs..

[Mist]

12. And more kicks! nt

[DeSwiss]

19. Thanks!!!

[Karenina]

13. All your food belong to us!

[DeSwiss]

21. I swear.

These stupid as*wipes have really f*cked themselves over with this one. Whoever initiated this should be FIRED, forthwith. There is NO up side here. In non-profits in most states, there are no licensing requirements if you provide products and services only to your members and do not sell your wares to the public at-large.

- They'd do well to apologize and reimburse their losses and find a hole to crawl into. But I doubt that they will.

[natrat]

14. wow...swat team for 3rd degree midemeanor

"Presumably Manna Storehouse might eventually be charged with running a retail establishment without a license. Why then the Gestapo-type interrogation for a 3rd degree misdemeanor charge?"

[DeSwiss]

22. They can't be charged with selling retail....

...when the only persons who can take advantage of the food made available there, are the members of the food cooperative. Selling retail assumes that anyone from the public at-large can just walk in and buy the food, which is not true. The membership "costs" are usually a set fee per month, per household. And sometimes they may require that members provide in-kind services, like packaging and sorting the food, etc. Its socialism at its finest!

- The state of Ohio screwed up royally on this one.....

[Frustratedlady]

15. That is too scary for words.

I shop at Amish cooperatives every time I get a chance. They buy in bulk and bag in usable quantities at much cheaper prices than grocery stores. Plus, their eggs are fresh from the nest, their homemade angel food cakes are to die for and their pecan or cinnamon rolls...hot from the oven...cannot be beat.

The end of this administration can't come too soon.

[DeSwiss]

23. What you're describing....

...is a retail operation, but not a food cooperative. And yet the cost of the food is still usually lower than grocery stores, because they're farmers and not retailers. Cooperatives have members who upon gaining membership, may then purchase the food. But not the public at-large.

- However states do differ on how they treat licensing and regulation of the sale of food by farmers.

[bean fidhleir]

26. Most co-ops will sell to non-members - but members get a discount

The profits are distributed to members at the cash register.

[LeftyMom]

44. That's how ours works. Special sales for members, but anybody can shop. And a 10% discount for

people with low income.

[bean fidhleir]

51. Co-ops are wonderful, aren't they?

I just wish I still lived close enough. The nearest to me where I live now is 20 miles away over roads unsafe for cycling :(

[pleah]

17. K&R

:wow:

[Peace Patriot]

25. This is TERRIBLE! Free food, and cooperative food sharing, will get you raided, arrested,

tied up in court for years, ruined by legal expenses, and even jailed. And most important of all, it will stop you from helping to feed your family, friends and community.

Welcome to our global corporate predator-run world, in which human sharing is forbidden!

I have always thought that this is why the Hippies were so reviled. Their philosophy of "free food, free weed and free love" was a dire threat to those who want love, pleasure and life itself to cost money. If money is not needed--because everyone is generous and loving--then how can they profit from starving the poor, poisoning the sick and jailing prostitutes in the "prison-industrial complex"? So they demonized and stigmatized the Hippies, and flooded U.S. society with heroin and cocaine (not to mention Big Pharma's offerings), and lots and lots of weapons.

And now, any eruption of generosity or cooperative effort--giving food to the homeless in parks or other public spaces, medical marijuana for those who are suffering dire illnesses, providing water or safe haven to poor illegal immigrants, or merely getting together with neighbors to distribute organic garden surpluses--gets harassed, raided, banned. Because human generosity and cooperation cannot be exploited by the rich, and, if it catches on, cuts off opportunities to get richer by looting and exploiting the poor, so it has to be stopped. Nipped in the bud. Criminalized. Made dangerous. Or word might spread that generosity and cooperation are possible.

[truedelphi]

29. The hippies were reviled, and the Black Panthers were massacred

Cannot have people creating a sane and workable society!!

[warren pease]

38. Any idea whose or what's income is being hit hard as a direct result of this co-op?

Not talking about big picture stuff, like corporate control of food production, distribution and supply. Or heretical violations of sacred corporate ideologies and absurd myths about the wonderfulness of the invisible hand of the market.

Past all the garbage theories the swine use to justify their unjustifiable parasitism, who in that same community is actually losing money? And is it due to the co-op's prices and lack of discernible profits?

Anybody know that stuff? I can't dig up much info besides the general themes of David and Goliath, dueling ideologies, with humanists predictably getting screwed again by the corporatocracy, who use their affiliates in local law enforcement to do their dirty work for them.


An odd random thought: it just struck me that an invisible hand is a very weird thing to venerate, even as a metaphor. But it's their game so I guess they get to name their own bogus bullshit what they choose.


wp

[kestrel91316]

46. Sharing is just another name for that EVIL COMMUNISM, and we can't

have any of that now, can we?

[BrklynLiberal]

27. So agribusiness is trying to get rid of the competition...

[Peace Patriot]

28. As an antidote to this crap, read this--about a U.S. medical student in Venezuela,

working in the Barrio Adentro program--universal health care through community-based health clinics in every area, especially under-served poor areas. It is very heartening as to what the cooperative spirit can accomplish.

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/4020
(discussion) http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x407517

[99th_Monkey]

30. Feeding poor people healthy food????????? How shockingly UnAmerican!!!

:sarcasm:

[depakid]

31. Health inspectors don't need anyone's permission to be on the property

and under Ohio law, it looks like the Coop is required to have a license on file.

Sounds to me like these folks have created their own problems by attempting to skirt the law.

[natrat]

32. and having the family including small children held at gunpoint for hours is an appropriate respons?

[depakid]

33. Not defending the heavy handed tactics

Just saying that businesses need to abide by health & safety and licensing requirements- and that this particular bussiness seems to have believed that they were exempt or above the law.

[mainegreen]

56. The problem is federal health inspectors often don't inspect for sanitary conditions..

but abiding by the strict letter of the law.

The two are not the same.

It should be easy to make health inspectors actual HEALTH inspectors again, but big corporate doesn't want that.

There is a war on, like it or not. In some states, big corporate has lost, in others they've won.

[girl gone mad]

52. Not surprised that you would

defend the heavy handed corpo-fascist tactics.

[depakid]

55. Kick health inspectors out of your place of business- and emphatically refuse to get a license

and legal trouble is sure to follow. As it should.

Given that it's Ohio- I guess it doesn't surprise me that the authorites behaved like idiots. I sort of take the risk that something like that will happen for granted in certain parts of the country.

[wolfgangmo]

61. Can you provide a link. I can't find one.

Can you provide a link to the ohio law where they require a license to run a members only non-retail sales food co-op?

I can't find one.

And they requested assistance in being compliant and their requests were ignored. I am not sure if a court would find them as attempting to skirt the law. It sounds to me like they were trying to be compliant.

[varelse]

34. Meanwhile in Iraq...

When officers from the Lorain County Sheriff’s Office in Ohio arrived last Monday at the Manna Storehouse food cooperative in LaGrange with weapons drawn and trained on Katie Stowers and her children, along with her in-laws, there was one member of the family missing.

Katie’s husband, Chad, is a U.S. Navy Seabee, helping in construction projects in the midst of combat in Iraq. He’s been there, separated from his family, for the last five months, supposedly protecting our rights from abuse—the sort of abuse that appears to be taking place on an ever-more-frequent basis at farms and food outlets around the country.

http://www.thecompletepatient.com/journal/2008/12/5/seems-us-forgot-to-tell-navy-seabee-chad-stowers-the-real-wa.html

[anonymous171]

35. Didn't this sort of thing happen during the great depression?

Confiscating and destroying food as to prevent deflation and keep the price of food high??

[Usrename]

36. They called in S.W.A.T. because they are afraid of the Amish?

:wtf:

This is beyond the pale. Incomprehensible.

[Enthusiast]

43. Just keeping you safe.

You know, like in Iraq.

[SteveM]

58. Just a note: the Amish are usually heavily armed...

besides, any law enforcement which has a cultural/prohibitionist component WILL bring in S.W.A.T. See: cannabis clubs, peace organizations.

Like it or not, if people support laws which try to ban stuff (pot, booze, guns, abortions, smoking, gay rights) they invite extremely heavy-handed paramilitary response from law enforcement.

[DonEBrook]

37. How dare the "government" attempt to insure a safe food supply.

Why, that's downright totalitarian!

[McCamy Taylor]

39. This is probably a response to melamine. People want to switch to organic food now.

FDA keeps raising the minimum amount of melamine that the major food labels can put into their food. But that does not reassure the public. They are scared that people who do not want melamine will switch to organics, so they are under orders to close down organics.

Shut up and eat your melamine! It's good for the economy!

[brentspeak]

57. I didn't know that food inspections included sticking automatic weapons in children's faces

[SteveM]

59. Happens every day in pot "raids." (nt)

[Raksha]

40. K & R - I first got word of this story

on my own organic produce club's message board. I'm very interested in seeing how this plays out...

[bertman]

41. I really loved the part about the "good cops" coming in after the bad SWAT cops to try to

"befriend" the hardened food criminals.

Goddamn you George Bush and your fascist henchmen.

[NBachers]

50. "Welcome to the Obamanation, folks. Get used to it."

This was one of the comments on the bovine.wordpress link. I spose I should just blow air out of my nose and move on, but I had to post a response pointing out that this kind of police state raid is straight out of the George W Bush playbook, who, by the way, is currently our president. Obama's trying to pull his own load, but he's got a lotta dead weight to contend with. Welcome to the George W Bush Repression Depression.

Maybe Manna's food was lacking in the Recommended Daily Requirement of melamine. Or arsenic. Or water-table pharmaceuticals. Or depleted uranium.

[Ken Burch]

47. Food Co-ops are a mortal threat to the Judeo-Christian values of this society

Why, ever since Jesus gave the moneychangers tax incentives to set up non-union grocery stores in the temple....

:think:

Oh, wait a minute....

Never mind....

:sarcasm: (...in case any didn't get where I was going here...)

[meuniermr]

48. Bob Dylan called this years ago

In "Union Sundown"; /Someday feedin' your own family is going to be against the law/

[Shardik]

54. K&R

Why is this not surprising?

[SteveM]

60. 'Tain't (nt)

[leeroysphitz]

62. Stalin insured control over the masses for the power elites by nationalizing food production.

How ironic that OUR government achieves the exact same ends by enforcing privatization of food production.

[lib2DaBone]

63. Seems strange... Govt Officals not worried about tainted food from China...

..or ecoli-laced spinach from Mexico.. but they are all over small farmers growing fresh meat and produce in small U.S. towns?

The tax man commeth... along with the Gestapo....

[lib2DaBone]

64. I wonder what will happen to the thousands of pounds of Beef and Poultry they Confiscated?

...wonder if it will disappear from evidence rooms like tons of marijuana... or confiscated laptops.. or pallets of cash in Iraq?