Regulation: Want to Hold a Yard Sale? Show Us Your Papers

During WWI, the federal government -- believing, as Herbert Hoover put it, that "wheat will win the war" -- sought greater control over the nation's food supply. The result was the Food Administration, whose minions spread across the land issuing decrees such as this one (recorded in a newspaper at the time, and recounted in Robert Higgs' Crisis and Leviathan):

"Here is your schedule for eating for the next four weeks which must be rigidly observed, says S.C. Findley, County Food Administrator:

"Monday: Wheatless every meal.

"Tuesday: Meatless every meal.

"Wednesday: Wheatless every meal.

"Thursday: Breakfast, meatless; supper, wheatless.

Friday: Breakfast, meatless; supper, wheatless.

Saturday: Porkless every meal; meatless breakfast.

Sunday: Meatless breakfast; wheatless supper."

And by the way, "Do not put sugar in your coffee unless this is a long habit, and in that case use only one spoonful."

The diktat sounds funny now, but after all there was a war on then, and folks were scared.

So what's Charlottesville's excuse?

The "People's Republic of," as it is sometimes called, is considering imposing new rules to regulate yard sales. Residents would be required to buy a permit to hold one, and would be forbidden to hold too many. No word yet on how many is too many.

TO THEIR credit, some members of Charlottesville's planning commission seem skeptical about the proposal. After all, city ordinances already regulate the posting of signs on public rights-of-way.

Yet there remains concern that . . . well, it's not quite clear what the concern is. The city doesn't want people to run a business as a yard sale: no buying junk on eBay and reselling it on your driveway -- that sort of thing. But then that's already illegal. Regulating yard sales more tightly might enable the city to crack down on these renegade resellers, if there are any, or many.

But then there's no word on why, exactly, profitable home businesses run as yard sales ought to be verboten, except that they are . . . well, there just oughtta be a law, that's all. Who knows but the city might be missing out on some sales taxes and BPOL (that's Business, Professional, and Occupational License) revenue.

And perhaps there is a sense, among some in the tony environs surrounding Mr. Jefferson's University, that yard sales are shabby, white-trash affairs put on by people who are N.O.C.D. -- Not Our Class, Dear. It's one thing to let the riffraff scatter their belongings all over the lawn once in a while, but must one look at the rubbish every weekend?

Maybe that's unfair reverse snobbery. Maybe there is no class animus behind the desire to regulate yard sales. Perhaps it is simply a case of code enforcers coming up with more codes to enforce. To paraphrase the old Oscar Hammerstein song from "Show Boat," fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, and regulators gotta regulate'til they die.

But requiring permits for yard sales is going too far. Why, it's downright un-American, as Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid would say. (Actually, they might say just the reverse -- anyone who opposes licensing yard sales is un-American -- but never mind.) A man's home is his castle, and all that. Or at least it used to be.

THAT WAS BEFORE the Great Backyard Bathtub Caper of 2007 -- when Henrico prosecuted a couple of Lakeside homeowners for their creative garden planter.

That was before the Architectural Review Board in Washington, D.C., told 88-year-old Cornelius Lucas and his 86-year-old wife they couldn't install a ramp on their front porch because it didn't comport with the historic-district guidelines of Mount Pleasant.

A man's home was his castle before towns such as Southampton, N.Y., began outlawing clotheslines. Before Canton, Ohio, passed an ordinance meting out jail time for homeowners who didn't keep their lawns nicely mowed. Before Salt Lake City, Utah, forbade rock gardens and xeriscaping.

A home was a castle before the Supreme Court ruled, in Wickard v. Filburn, that a farmer who grew food for his own table was affecting interstate commerce, and was therefore subject to the federal Agricultural Adjustment Act. Before the Wilson administration's drive to make the world safe for democracy devolved into dietary guidelines for the local yokels.

A home was a castle a long time ago -- back when the words of William Pitt the Elder (1708-1778) still rang true: "The poorest man may in his cottage, bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail, its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storm may enter; the rain may enter; but the King of England may not enter; all his force dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement." Those words certainly seem to hold less sway today in Charlottesville, People's Republic of.

Here is your schedule for eating for the next four weeks, which must be rigidly observed.

If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Contact A. Barton Hinkle at (804) 649-6627 or .