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I just posted an article about how I fought the law… well, the Ohio Administrative Code regarding open burning. It appears someone else has taken matters into their own hands when it comes to dealing with the law:

Yes, it appears that in Miami Township, Ohio (a suburb of Cincinnati) someone has taken it upon themselves to let the public know just how they feel about their police force… while doing so anonymously. I wish I knew why this person did this… there simply HAS to be a good story behind this. Was it a parking ticket? A speeding ticket? Or some other traffic citation?! Imagine the puzzled look on the officer’s face when the speeder grins and gladly accepts the $85 speeding ticket. The article on the Cincinnati Enquirer website said the police narrowed down the time of the incident to “between 8pm August 27th and 7am August 28th.” (Adobe .pdf version of the article). Wow. I’m going out on a limb here to say it will be hard for them to pin down a suspect on this one. I mean, even if they have a short list of people to choose from (the article states someone must’ve had a key to the backhoe and knew how to operate it), you are still facing a group of alibias where most of them consist of this:

Detective: “Sir/mam, where were you between 8pm and 7am on August 27/28th?”

Suspect: “I watched the 10:00 news and then I went to bed; woke up at my usual 5/6/7/8 or whenever”….

The point is… deep down someone is snickering and feeling vindicated. I can’t condone this kind of behavior, but I have to be impressed with the creativity and great length that someone went through to pull this off. It may seem juvenile, but what it really did was embarrass the local authorities. If you lived in Miami Township, or if you DO live in Miami Twp, how much does this make you believe in your police force?!

This should just be a reminder to people that we live in a society in which some people are not all there in the head. I can’t imagine a sane, rational person thinking this is a wise thing to do. Were there drugs involved? Was the person who did this high as a kite? We may never know. But next time someone cuts you off in traffic or lets their dog pee on your lawn, just remember they could be taking some kind of anti-depressant or on some type of illegal drug. It’s best not to instigate or fuel a volatile situation in this day and age in which we live. Ok, I will get off my soapbox, but let’s try to be respectful of one another and of course respectful of the law and those who are in power and risk their lives to enforce it.

As always I welcome your comments and feedback…

It was a draw. Stalemate. While I am preface this by saying I am NOT an attorney, I do feel that through my business law classes and experience in government regulated businesses (real estate and insurance) I think I have a good handle on how the legal system works. But recently I discovered a new part of the law that I had previously not been exposed to: the Ohio Administrative Code. Did you know… “With few exceptions, most types of open burning are prohibited in Ohio“… this is a quote directly from the pamphlet entitled Open Burning - A Guide to Open Burning Safely and Legally, published by Hamilton County [Ohio] Environmental Services with input from the US and Ohio EPA.

This past Sunday I decided it was time to get rid of the six-foot tall pile of tree branches and yard waste in my back yard. Yes, it’s been a busy summer of trimming pine trees here in Cincinnati. I did not want to send all of this to the landfill, and I did not want to pay some tree trimmer to haul it away. Why not burn it? Well, apparently this is against the law… er, administrative code… in Ohio. One of my neighbors called the police on me for having an “open burn” as the officer called it. I didn’t see what the big deal was… I had two fire extinguishers, a charged hose, and two buckets of water. Doesn’t matter, even if the fire is well-controlled I did not have a permit.

The Permit Process:

1) Call the local fire department and request application for the Open Burn. You must specify what you are burning and when you will burn it. You should schedule this at least two weeks in advance I’m told.

2) Submit application to fire department. Upon fire department approval, go to step 3.

3) Submit fire department approved permit application along with any county fee to the county’s department of environmental services division for final approval.

Either one of the two government entities (the fire department or the county environmental services division) can deny the application for a permit, for virtually any reason by the way.

So how does anyone ever get to burn yard waste with all that red tape?!

Ah ha! There are exceptions to the Ohio Administrative Code regarding open burning.

Quoting once again from the same Hamilton County Environmental Services brochure:
The following exceptions are allowed: “cooking for human consumption (e.g. barbecues), heating tar, welding torches, smudge pots, and heating for warmth for outdoor workers.”

Guess who had his 1st Annual Thomas Goodwin Labor Day Cookout this year!!! That’s right… there were hot dogs, sausages, cheddarwursts, and s’mores served up over a pile of burning pine needles. And not only did I make sure I notified the fire and police departments in advance of my legal cookout (as a courtesy of course), I went one step further and invited these two fine public servant departments to my cookout. I would love to see the neighbor’s face when he or she called to report the second fire in as many days only to see the police arrive to partake in a hotdog and Coke.

The moral of this story… wait, let’s not call it a moral. I know what I did was legal but let’s not get into morals and ethics just yet… the little nugget of wisdom I took away from this event was that sometimes you have to look for the legal way to do things even if means making the simple task more complicated. Both days I had a fire. The second one was more work and more involved as it required me to go buy hotdogs, buns, condiments, etc. It made my fire legitmate though, and it was more enjoyable, too. I got to have a cookout with some close friends and even invited (some of) the neighbors.

As always, I welcome your comments and feedback…