Government agents have again let their true colors shine, in a latest attempt to fight one of the most pernicious and brutal crimes embattling far too many communities across the nation — a lack of permit.
Never fear, code enforcers raided street food vendors outside Sacramento’s Southside Park, where they have long made food and beverages available to the public and attendees of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church each Sunday.
These fearless agents of the State, peace officers, not only seized the food supposedly so in need of a permit, they dumped punch into storm drains and confiscated coolers, tables, chairs, canned soda, and literally everything in the vendors’ possession — the entire raid, captured on Facebook Live video.
In video footage, one peace officer says, “I came and I personally talked to each of them months ago. And I told them, ‘If you don’t comply, if you don’t get a permit, you’re going to be in violation, they’re going to confiscate your product.’”
What the agent fails to make clear on tape is that most of the vendors present had, indeed, applied for permits prior to this raid — but the permits had yet to be approved. In short, the officers previously warned permits would be necessary — but they did not allow sufficient time for governmental permission slips to be granted before carrying through on threats to shut them down.
“Look at what they’re doing,” Desiree Rojas, of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, can be heard narrating on video footage of the raid.
Rojas believes the obstreperous raid might have had more to do with the vendors’ nationalities — most speak Spanish and are Mexican — than with their lack of permits.
“It was embarrassing and humiliating,” she told local FOX40. “And I don’t think that the Mexican community deserves to be treated that way.”
But what Rojas added next speaks to the oppressive national political climate — and the fears so innately present in the minds of those food vendors and their clientele as to be inextricable from their utterly victimless crimes.
We thought it was ICE.
These otherwise law-abiding street vendors — most still waiting for the appropriate pieces of paper for which they applied — now must scramble to supplant the income that will be lost without the equipment necessary to run their businesses.
Without the coolers to keep beverages appropriately chilled or warmed, or the tables and chairs they provided for churchgoers to congregate over a meal, the vendors fear for their welfare and that they might have attracted the attention of immigration officials — if unnecessarily so.
Rojas emphasized most of these Sunday morning vendors would very much like to work within the confines of the law — whether that be through permitting or any other restrictions the State would impose — but had not been given sufficient time since being threatened with shutdown for permit applications to be granted.
Hoarding these items is better than having money in the bank (Ad)
Ironically-monikered peace officers claimed without elaborating or providing specific details on the video they’d received complaints — but the outpouring of support from the public and church communities, as well as outrage over the raid, did not evince any complainants relieved to see the picnicking quashed.
Rojas and members of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement will discuss the raid, its repercussions, and their concerns for the community stemming from the actions taken by police on Sunday.
“They literally instilled fear,” Rojas opined. “And right now, we’re conducting our own investigation.”
Obtaining a permit — which, for all intents and purposes, amounts to a permission slip from the State — can be a fraught and unnecessarily arduous procedure, depending on one’s location in the U.S. and the subject matter in question.
Frequently, the State offers no leniency in the matter, making the process of getting a permit a patience-testing exercise at best — add extenuating circumstances, and obtaining a permit becomes a Herculean task.
For instance, last August, Louisiana experienced torrential downpours and widespread flooding so damaging, scores of home- and business owners had no choice but to rebuild from scratch. That seemingly simple solution — starting over — soon turned into laborious hoop-jumping in order to satisfy permitting requirements the State had previously imposed.
No latitude was offered flood victims when it came time for construction to begin — permits, the State essentially demanded, are permits — even if high water left victims without shelter. As Baton Rouge building official Justin Dupuy noted at the time,
We haven’t suspended any of our requirements for permitting.
Then, in September, another prime example of the absurd intersection between logic and the overcriminalization of daily life reared its head, when a little girl did what little girls have done throughout time immemorial — she set up a lemonade stand.
‘Not so fast,’ the State said — ‘you need a permit,’ which would have cost her $200, ‘and your stand must be up to code,’ which would have entailed $3,500 to bring this neighborhood refreshment station into compliance.
At the height of Pokemon Go hysteria, several local governments even sought to force permitting restrictions on players.
From diligent street vendors offering tasty bites, to kids offering family-recipe lemonade to parched passersby, one thing has been made abundantly clear — permitting is out of control.
Permits are the government’s way of bilking people of money under the petulant guise of public safety — but the truth about permitting is much simpler and infinitely less benign.
‘You aren’t allowed to profit unless I get my cut,’ is what the State really says when Mexican food vendors, flood victims, little girls, and countless others receive fines and tickets — or have their possessions confiscated — due only to lack of permit.
That the Sacramento food vendors didn’t shirk legal responsibilities and had applied for the necessary permits when cops seized their wares again proves the issue has little to do with the permit, itself, and everything to do with an unreasonable government running roughshod on all of us.
If you still aren’t convinced, just ask the guy who volunteered free hugs to subway riders in November — for which the State slapped him with a $101 ticket.
Claire Bernish began writing as an independent, investigative journalist in 2015, with works published and republished around the world. Not one to hold back, Claire’s particular areas of interest include U.S. foreign policy, analysis of international affairs, and everything pertaining to transparency and thwarting censorship. To keep up with the latest uncensored news, follow her on Facebook or Twitter: @Subversive_Pen. This article first appeared here at TheFreeThoughtProject.com.
Maybe they need to use rifle butts on their heads. That will teach them to get a permit.
It’s official, everything we do, if we identify as one of their corporate entities (learn how to avoid this!), is illegal and now even normal charity like feeding the poor is enough to send in armed thugs to destroy property, steal food, scare the crap out of people, and fine them up the wazoo just for violating some made up corporate policy.
But here’s really why they did it like they did – the Church is a registered corporation under 501(c)3, and they were on corporate property (we are NOT “The Public” and have no stake in The Public Trust). So this was a matter of one corporation violating another’s corporate policy that had previously been stipulated to (by business licensing or whatever). One corporation owns the other and calls all the shots, can you guess which is which? There is only ONE corporation with authority in their warped psychotic minds, and that is the one that is pretending to be our governments, state, local, and federal. So we now have to ask permission, as our corporate entities, via permit, to do just about anything. Disgusting tyranny and domination by intimidation and threats of harm. I call that assault, theft, and bullying, but I digress…
This is the second time I’ve heard this happening and I think this was more a training drill for the armed thugs to see how far they’d go with just “orders”.Just when will they say, HEY, this isn’t right, and I’m not going to do it!? These thugs thrive on the excuse to commit horrendous chaos and vio lence saying, “Just doing my job, ma’am, just following orders.”
Well, according to history, which is wholly unreliable now they’ve been rewriting it and editing it for chattel consumption, 99 percent of all crimes including war crimes, genocides, murders, and thefts have been committed by people just doing their jobs. We are programmed from birth not to question authority, even though the truth is, it’s a false one.
And there are still young men and women lining up to perform these unholy, unlawful and criminal acts under the guise (disguise) of order, safety and security (yeah, for their bosses), hiding behind masks, uniforms, and shiny metal badges stuck on their clothes, armed with enough weapons to take out an entire street. We’d better wake up soon, or it’s just going to get worse~
I just now realized I commented on the wrong article but oddly enough it’s just as applicable here. So there are two articles today about cops seizing food and property and shutting things down over lacks of permits? I thought I was commenting on the church being shut down for feeding the homeless! Yikes, my bad! ROFL
It’s kinda like a blitz
Yes, and I had my dose of it back in 1992 or so when I had the audacity to think I could modify my own house without their permission. After thousands of unnecessary fee, plans, inspections, and virtual extortion, I was “permitted,” and could live in my own house, legally, once more. And it really was MY house (no mortgage). That little Napoleon who inspected was a contractor wannabe who failed his license exam, I found out later. Why do I keep seeing the elementary school playground bully when this comes to mind, I wonder? Oy Vey! Being a Goy and smiling is like rubbing your belly and patting your head at the same time.
The audacity!!! LOL I know, right? I swear, these types of order followers who are violating laws and ignoring inherent rights, not to mention those supposedly protected by the piece of paper DC wipes their bums with (do pardon lol) really frost my cookies. I think half of the stuff we see now is testing the order followers to see just how far they’ll go before their consciences kick in and they say, “Hey, wait a sec… I’m NOT gonna do that, if you want it done, do it yourself!” Judging by the armed thugs assaulting us left and right now, it appears they’ll go pretty darn far, which is a very sad thing to witness. Order followers are despicable cowards who commit crimes hiding under a costume and a pretty metal badge (or laminate now lol) Everyone is going along with the program to think as a community or as a hive, for the greater good, they say, but really the greater good never includes us.
There now is no way to reverse the onslaught of the police state. The American people, the vast majority of them, have to be the most delusional, demented, ignorant, cowardly, and perhaps just stupid, population that has ever existed on the face of this planet. At most, perhaps three percent of the people in this country are now fit to be anything other than slaves and cannon fodder. That’s what they are now, and they are too insouciant to know it.
people should only eat at permitted establishments – you know, like McDonald’s and all the other purveyors of Monsanto poison, burger buns made from industrial chemicals and cleaning materiels, and whose executives are in bed with Government officials.
This is their new way to get people to fall in line for the globalist owners of ALL the earths money- they want to own all resources and people now.. Welcome to the left and right global Lucerferians, their puppets like Soros and Hilary and McCain have no conscience for money…plus they were promised prominent positions when globalist take over. All MSM Media is propaganda. Fox will go now go communist since the left son has more say than the right conservative son, now that daddy is out.
Two sides to every coin or story. The comply or die mentality of what used to be called “peace officers” and now “law enforcement” is an obvious exaggeration of assumed power and control. Simply make them pack up and leave and not destroy their private property.
On the other side this is not Mexico and until the citizens change the rules there are health regulations to be followed because of food temperatures, cleanliness, etc.
My oh my, another fine predicament hey?
Unfortunately, California is NOT an open carry state. If it were, there would be a new booming business poroviding body bags to holkd the “enforcement officers” who pull this type of crap.
If you are an American then you know this is a BS report. Illegals should not be given permits. Venders make people sick all the time, they must be monitored. Patrons assume they are legal with the city! If it was my town I would have them charged, arrested, and released or deported, and their food carts impounded for recovery by the owners. We have laws for a reason. If the laws are unreasonable, then you work to change them. I wont eat at food venders because they have made me sick repeatedly. More over site in food handling does need to be done. I would not have dumped the food stuff though- I would have left it to rot on the carts and sited them later if improperly disposed of. Lessons need to be learned here.
The legal argument needs to be made that the government does not have the authority to demand a permit under the constitution.
May I inhale? Oh, and exhale, too, please. Where do I sign up?
This shit doesn’t happen in Russia – its 50cents to 1 dollar a day for a site in the market place. There are no police – only a security guard walking around – and he is a local contractor that watches the market when it is working and when it is locked up.
Another exaggerated, misrepresented, twist on the truth by this journalist. Remember to believe only half of what you read unless you know the actual truths. The fact is, there is a double standard of the laws governing California. Americans must get Health Dept permits to sell food to protect us by inspecting food before permits are issued. Mexican Immigrants ignore and bypass these laws and sell their tamales on street corners, parks, concerts, & sporting events. Americans must purchase Building Permits before beginning a room addition to insure the safety codes are applied. Mexican immigrants ignore and bypass these permits and build a room in secret. I know, I was an appraiser in So. Cal. Americans must have a licence and insurance to drive a vehicle, must pay for their hospital emergencies, must pay for education, must pay taxes, and some get off with a warning because of legal paperwork and tiresome deportation hassles. You get the point. It’s also why California is broke. There has to be one set of rules that apply to all, and without ‘privilege’ to certain races.
Cans of pop? The family desperately needed? Don’t these people know that Hispanics are extremely vulnerable to diabetes? These officers did them a favor.