Food Anti-Hoarding Laws - how are you going to beat them?

One of the things about grabbers (food or gun) is that they tend to fall back on bureaucratic decisions for their rationale. So depending on the context, you may have some wiggle room for what counts as a food. Again, if a bureaucrat doesn't recognize it, you may be off the hook. Depending.

Animal feed may not be considered "food," although no. 2 yellow corn is perfectly fine once it's ground.

Likewise a 40 lb bag of salt might not be noticed in the garage, but would cure a great deal of meat for smoking or make a lot of brine for pickling if it was iodine-free.

Are they really going to search anyplace but your kitchen and a few closets?

And if you rent a storage shelter nearby, how are they going to know? Are they really going to cut 100 locks off of 100 storage units, to look for food??? And if you pay your rent for the locker in cash, how will they know which one to look in??

If you have a dedicated work-space at your job, you probably ought to have a bug-out bag there, for sure, why not a couple of crates of ramen noodles as well? Canned meat usually has a 10-year shelf life....

Many adults in our affluent culture have a number of spaces that they control and exclude others from. Any and all of these could hold food, self-defense tools, etc. So if you have the keys to the filing cabinet at the office, or a locker at your gym; or if you rent a we-store-it unit out on the interstate... they are going to have a hard time finding all of it.

Heck, a cache of tins of beef, packed with rice and sealed in a length of 6" pvc and buried under the woodpile, will be too much for them to locate....

a reply to: 3n19m470

Invest in bean bag chairs

You guys need to read "The Last Centurion" by John Ringo.

originally posted by: stabstab

He who hoards the most food in SHTF is almost certainly going to want an equal or greater amount of poo on hand.

Best quote on ATS, usable in 95% of posts

a reply to: redempsh

You make some good points redempsh. We need to think about this stuff before hand and plan accordingly.

If you do get caught maybe you can rely on the"My religion told me to do it" defense? I hear Mormons are being told to prep for the end. If brought before the magistrate my defense will be a combination of that and "what's the difference between hoarding food and hoarding money?".

Bean bags are a good idea, you could fill them with enough beans and rice to last a year - but whoever sits on them is forbidden to fart on pain of death!

The couch (sofa) might also be a good spot to fill the space under the webbing with. My 5 seater ensemble could hold enough packets of dry beans to feed one person 3 years.

a reply to: JIMC5499


Tell us more about why please.

a reply to: Cinrad

The book is about a global epidemic that takes place during a time of global cooling. It addresses things like hoarding and martial law. It is well written and well researched.

Question...how will they know you're hoarding?

Are they going to be conducting spot checks on every household in America? Are there going to be rewards for turning in your neighbors?

a reply to: amazing

its amazing how many people brag about it - just read the ATS survival sub

originally posted by: seagull
a reply to: Cinrad

That would seem to be unenforceable for the most part. Barring the most draconian of martial law.

With all of the electronic tracking of everything we do/buy they could already have the Hoarder Hit List in waiting...

Good topic! Reminds me of how gold was confiscated from United Statesians in the past century.

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

Ahh, that's why you grow and can/dry your own.

Some farmers, usually the small ones, will let you glean their fields after harvest. Berries and such like can be had for the price of the gas it takes to find 'em...usually not that much. Though in some places, it's frowned upon close to the road, so you may have to get off the road in order to do so.

...and, of course, fish and various other meats and such like can be hunted, dressed, then dried/canned for storage.

Jars for canning are readily available at yard sales, or antique shops, etc...

Learning how to do it is, literally, child's play...I learned how by the time I was out of elementary school.

With a little foresight, totally off the grid, mind you I didn't say illegally, I said off the grid. That's one of the advantages of a labyrinthine bureaucracy...you can use it's very unwieldiness against it. Out of sight, out of mind.

With a little sweat equity, you can also build yourself a tidy little root cellar if you're so minded.

KInda hard to track you if you don't let 'em.

a reply to: vonclod

That's a hell of a notion...

Never even occurred to me. A years supply of beans, and rice, right in plain sight.

a reply to: seagull

Around here, the many tomato fields still have about a semi-truck load of the final ripe tomatoes, left for dead after the main pull is finished. What's also interesting in that is, the local big grocery stores dont sell the tomatoes grow down the street, I actually saw some imports at one right during the local peak harvest in the winter. It turns out these tomatoes must only go to the restaurants, and bodegas. Bodegas & restaurant supply houses are where you want to shop for the best deals, especially if you're trying to score big, big deals to do canning (if you cant grow).

We don't have any anti-hoarding food laws in Canada as far as I know.

But I could be wrong.

I hope I'm not wrong.




Dang, now I feel the need to go digging around to see if we do.

a reply to: CranialSponge

I found this article

www.canadianpreppersnetwork.com...

If word gets out that you have a stocked pantry, there are present laws that give the government the authority to seize your food assets. Your pantry could be distributed, in a state of emergency, to others that the government deems the most in need.

I think as long as we're sharing our food stores with needy neighbours, they'd leave us alone.

And as for water, in the prairies, so many houses are still relying on basement cisterns and water ponds on acreages.

We're too small a population in a very large country for them to follow up on anti-food hoarding laws (I think). Plus they tell us we have to be prepared to be without help if there's a disaster.

a reply to: snowspirit

Similar situation here, gov wants us to be prepared. Some people live a 1 hour drive from nearest supermarket, so they keep 2-3 times what they need for a fortnight in the pantry. Also even if we have town water out here it is usually bad quality, everyone has a 1000L rainwater tank at least. The only place the gov doesn't want people prepared seems to be in the States.

Turn in your neighbour sounds like the most likely method of enforcement. If I had a prepper food stash I wouldn't tell anyone.

It may not be "PC" ( paranoidally correct ) to point this out, but US-FEMA's own literature encourages you to stockpile food and anything else your family might need:

You may need to survive on your own after an emergency. This means having your own food, water and other supplies in sufficient quantity to last for at least 72 hours. Local officials and relief workers will be on the scene after a disaster but they cannot reach everyone immediately. You could get help in hours or it might take days. Additionally, basic services such as electricity, gas, water, sewage treatment and telephones may be cut off for days or even a week, or longer. Your supplies kit should contain items to help you manage during these outages.

(emphasis added by redempsh

As much suspicion as ATS directs at FEMA, it is also true that they have some decent beginners' checklists when preparing for an emergency. They even add checklists for your business, according to the logic that the sooner businesses can get back to work, the sooner a community can begin to recover.


Now, having posted all that, I will tell you that my study of history shows that going back to the beginnings of recorded history, authorities have attacked hoarders as the worst of offenders. In modern times, this is true of folks who SELL WANTED PRODUCTS to the needy at market prices during a crisis.

A convenience store was prosecuted in San Fran after the 1989 "World Series Earthquake", for selling batteries at 8 x the normal price.

After Hurricane Hugo hit Florida, a number of big-box hardware stores were prosecuted for selling generators and plywood for 8 - 10 times the previous price.

A gas station in Dallas, TX was prosecuted for selling gasoline for about 8 $/gallon on the evening of Sept. 11, 2001.

Being surrounded by the pitchfork brigades is less of a threat than that you will be prosecuted for trying to make a profit off of your proper prior planning. No one has ever been prosecuted for agreeing to pay a ridiculous price in an emergency. For the life of me, if the a transaction was volitional, entered into of both parties' free will.... I don't see how you can punish them actually selling their stocks, if hoarding is a crime....

Double post removed by Redempsh.

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edit on 27/6/2016 by redempsh because: (no reason given)