Over-regulation in West Virginia?

Over-regulation in West Virginia?
The pumpkin roll police may have sent the wrong signal to the Amish

DailyMail | December 21, 2005

Reader Comment:
Amen! Great article that shows how WV (and the entire country) is
anti-rugged individualism, and tyrannical against the simple life of family
business. Note in particular the FEAR from almighty government that
prevents simple living and legitimate business--that "strains at gnats and
swallows camels"! THIS IS WHAT GOVERNMENT HAS BECOME, largely to collect tax revenues on everything. So much for "the pursuit of life, liberty, and
happiness."

LIFE in Middlefield, Ohio, had become too hectic and too complicated for seven Amish families. So they left the town of 2,233 people for Reedy in Roane County, W.Va., population 198.

Now older and wiser, they are heading back to Ohio. Life in West Virginia was just too regulated, said Leroy Miller, a logger. He sold most of his farm to a non-Amish couple in Florida.

"We like it here," Miller told David Hedges, publisher of the Times-Record in Spencer. "It's just hard for the working man."

Miller compared logging in Ohio to logging in West Virginia. "In Ohio I bought a sawmill and a chain saw and got some crews and went to work," he said. "Down here you have to go through all kinds of red tape."

He said he worried about being fined or cited any time he went to work.

Things were worse for his wife, Mary, who tried to sell baked goods from their home. Unable to use electricity or gas because of their religion, she used kerosene. This brought all sorts of trouble, Mrs. Miller said.

Health department regulations shut her down.

"I usually made a lot of pumpkin rolls and I had to quit because I didn't have any refrigeration. They did check my ice chest and it was cold enough, but that didn't matter," she said. "There was so much to go through I just quit altogether."

Now of course, the health department should protect the public's health. Certainly, state health officials have a side to the story as well.

But is pumpkin roll policing necessary?

A state that spent $35 million on Tamarack to try to build up the cottage industry of crafts surely should be able to work out some sort of deal so Amish housewives can sell baked goods in peace.