She Got a Permit for Her Chickens. Now the City Is Fining Her $80k

> All power goes to those who object.

I see this all the time in the private sector where if just 1 person in a team objects to a decision, the team has to jump thru many hoops to make something barely reasonable happen

What happened to "just deal with it?"

I think it's viewed that those words are too cruel, or not nice. But actually, when you give up those words, you end up with a society far more cruel and not nice.

With a few cameras it's probably possible to automatically determine how noisy are people in any given neighborhood, "More than 50% of the people here spend more than 80% of their day at home", maybe there should be a standard measure for it, NIMBYness-meter.

The dogs in my neighbourhood are much louder than my chickens. Literally measured this with a decibel meter. I can hear the neighbours dog barking while I’m in my bed. I can’t hear my chickens.

> They won't bark all night, or maul a child,

I think you misunderstand, these are not things pets do, these are things that wild, abused and/or neglected animals do.

A former neighbor had chickens and didn't keep their coop properly secured. Coincidentally, the neighborhood raccoons were also the fattest, roundest animals I've ever seen.

> Roosters should not be allowed

Ironically, the article depicts the homeowner holding a rooster; I can see why a neighbor would be pissed.

Backyard hens are thing in my city (dancing around HOA is another issue altogether), but our ordinance makes it abundantly clear that roosters are not permitted.

"roosters should not be allowed"

Why? We have a rooster. He protects the hens. He crows in the morning, just like dogs bark, and F-250s rev past the neighborhood road. Where do you think chickens come from in the first place?

It's just another small step to say "hens should not be allowed"

It's generally more of a little hobby for people than an attempt to actually save money.

I read something recently, I think it was on HN or linked to from discussion, about something like the opposite. And it was argued something like national security over the price effect it could have on agriculture across state or national borders. Likely ridiculous, but may have had some semi-rationalising nuance. I would have thought the US, of all places, wouldn't be placing such restrictions on liberty.

I might be cross-linking a couple of different things though, so hold back that outrage.

But, yes, I agree. It would also give more people an understanding of what real (non-mass-produced, heirloom) fruits and vegetables taste like. And eggs (my better half regularly buys eggs from a student at the school, the same student also, every morning, tends to the school's vegetable garden with autistic dedication and attention). Meat is a bit more difficult.

Hands in the dirt is good for mental health too.

We do. Some parts of Maine have passed “right to raise food” laws.

That's true, but "neighbors have a veto over whether you can do X" is an untenable way to manage those property rights. A bigger city would codify limits on what you can do with waterfowl or whatever. Douglas doesn't even have a city attorney.

I guess it depends. There's been a major issue in the UK for a while regarding quite a few very iconic, decades old, live music venues. Back in the day they were in less salubrious areas of town so no one really cared, but now they're prime property with very expensive flats being put up all around them.

Many of the new residents never even do so much as even visit the area before buying them, and then immediately (and sadly often successfully) put in noise complaints attempting to get the venues shut down, despite the already strict licensing laws (curfew at 10.30 at the absolute latest, no outside drinking etc).

I can understand having restrictions against chickens in an area, but "you can do this unless a single neighbor objects" is a crazy way of handling it imo.

I don't see the issue you see here. It seems like the city fucked things up and is now penalizing the woman to cover up their own incompetence. One would think that any sensible person would object to this, not just libertarians.

Incurring your neighbor $200,000 in costs for having 7 chickens is a "reasonable restriction"

So, you can't accept when libertarians are right?

This place is a tiny village, like 1,300 people, the problem here is likely someone from the city, maybe from Chicago, who moved to where they family use to own a summer cabin or launch boats out onto the lake, and then got pissed when they realized the locals grew up rural and didn't just do tourist things and like to raise animals like chickens. Ain't nobody from that town that hasn't regularly smelled chicken and cow shit and heard chickens cawing every morning their entire lives that would even notice they were there.

Chickens aren’t particularly noisy, especially relative to a “non rural area”, and any mess is contained within the coop.

Is this not a rural location? I'm not sure what the definition is, but it's 10x lower population density than the city I grew up in, which isn't particularly dense.

Loud, dirty animals? So no dogs, then?