When The Nanny State Attacks: $1600 Fine For A Stray Poppy Seed

A cautionary tale, of sorts.  When the government unleashes swarms of bureaucratic upon the populace in the name of "doing good", you can be sure rights are being trampled and lives are being ruined. Our "leaders" know this, of course, but they consider it acceptable collateral damage in their true quest: Creating additional revenue streams outside of "taxation" for which to fund the expansion of government. Which expands their own powers. Which weakens ours. Again, all part of the plan....

Is the government just mindless kudzu?  Or something more sinister?  Out of  Nanny Bloomberg's New York, we get this:

A Health Department inspector bizarrely slapped a Brooklyn bagel shop with $1,650 in fines — because sesame and poppy seeds fell to the floor while the bagels were being made during working hours.

The owner of B&B Empire Bagel Cafe — who appealed the violations and lost at two separate hearings — says the inspectors must have holes in their heads.

“It is impossible to clean up after each and every bagel,” declared Alex Gormakh, 59, who owns the Clinton Sreet shop. “It is impossible. It is a process.”

“Look,” explained Gormakh, “a few seeds are always going to be dropped when you are dipping the bagel in the seeds. They don’t all stick like glue.”

No mice were detected in an earlier inspection on Aug. 1, 2011, and none were found in the latest inspection on April 5, when B&B was awarded the highest cleanliness grade of “A.”


Here's the money quote:

Gormakh appears resigned to the higher cost of doing business in this city. “If you want to work you have to pay,” he concluded. “In Russia, they call it corruption. Here they call it something else. Either way, you have to pay.”


Poor Gormakh makes a fair comparison, one which should terrify us all.

Open up and take it, they said...