Bown Lawn means jail time

www.tampabay.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Mod Edit: Fixed spelling in title



[edit on 10/11/08 by FredT]

This is outrageous. Of all the problems we have going on right now, these douchebags force a man into jail for not re-sodding his lawn. This makes me want to vomit. I think we should find out who is in charge of this mess and flood them with emails and phone calls. This kind of behavior by officials is completely unacceptable. They say it's his own fault. How is it your own fault if you're retired and cannot afford to pay someone to re-sod your lawn? It's grass for crying out loud. There are more important things to worry about these days. The judge that ordered this needs a kick to the groin area.

www.tampabay.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Goes to show how out of control these Homeowner ASSociations are, and this jerk, Circuit Judge W. Lowell Bray does need a serious Boot To the Head from reality. Maybe if someone disabled all the sprinklers of the Homeowners association enforcers they could feel the same wrath?

We have a b**tch that drives around our neighborhood looking for little tiny things to harass owners about, in these trying times little Nazi's like her should learn to be a little more careful whose feet they step on.

"His crime? He had disobeyed a court order that he sod the lawn at his Beacon Woods home."
He is not going to jail for not sodding his lawn.
He is going to jail for contempt of court for disobeying a court order.
If he had have got an attorney and fought the court action and won.
He would not have a court order ordering him to sod his lawn.
However, commonly in the justice system you will hear about people like gramps.
Who never really had a chance in fighting the order and probably barely understood it or the proceeding's that were taking place.
This is why ALL people need to help there fellow man.
Do what you can.
Help you neighbor.
Go and try and help people like this who DO NOT belong in Jail.
Because the system can often be abused like this.
Go to school in your spare time.
Learn the law.
You don't have to become a full attorney.
Help people out.Go put your name down.Volunteer.
Do this today so tomorrow will be better.
A judge will very very rarely go against the law.
If you can prove points of law, and prove other things.
It doesn't matter who or what you are.

Homeowner's Association have more power than local governments. They can fine you for every minor incident, as they please.

I knew this elderly lady who used to live in my neighborhood, who didn't have anyone to mow her lawn for her, or any other yard work, so I would help her out. When I had to go out of town for a couple of months, she had no one to help her with the lawn, and the H.A. fined her $300 for every week that the lawn wasn't taken care of, with a delay in payment resulting in a lawsuit.

By the time I got back, she said that she was ready to move.

[edit on 11-10-2008 by DJMessiah]

I wish some company was out there that would pick up on this and put some Astroturf in this man yard. These stories of people going to jail over issues like this and unreturned libraries books are getting ridiculous. Where has commonsense gone? If I were him I would just spray paint the damn yard green.

This is just insane ,I thought the jails were overcrowded ...
I guess me and all my neighbors here in N Texas will all end up in jail too because we have all been told we have to be cool with water ...and we have had no rain ..so all of our yards are brown ..
They did come out just a few weeks ago in the local newspaper and said they are cracking down on people who dont mow though ..With food the price it is ..Electric is eating us all for lunch ..gas prices ..etc ..NO ONE CAN AFFORD to pay for someone to mow .So now they will be facing fines ....which I suppose thats because our city needs more money ..(GRR) ....there are at least three people just on our block alone who are old and have NO ONE who cares about them at all ...a few others go and mow their yards for them (Thank God for good neighbors) ....We really are all in this together ..so we all need to go and help eachother out as much as we can ..
Or we all need to just REVOLT and let them take us all to jail at the same time.
The only problem is they might just do it ..especially since they now have so many FEMA camps ready to house us all in a heartbeat .
THIS STUFF MAKES ME SO MAD ...I am gritting my teeth right now lol ...

I just read the whole newspaper article and man I am disgusted, the man and his whole family were going through tough times as it was! Apparently his vehicle had been reposessed and his mortgage payments went up 600$ a month?

Something is really really wrong when a family has to see their father GO TO JAIL an overcrowded jail at that because of his lawn? Regardless he was found in contemt because IMO he never should have been to court in the first place. Who the hell are these associations and why havnt people stopped this NAZI like behavior? '

I live in Canmore ALberta and yes the bylaws are RIDICULOUS here as well but they mostly have to do with how close we are to provincial parks and I've never heard of anyone getting locked up for brown grass. Seriously I hope they do get flooded with hatemail/angry calls as other posters said, TOTAL BS!!

This is just the most ridiculous story I have ever heard. WOW. Where is the common sense in all of this? Or more importantly, where is the humanity? That Judge, Lawyer and people who filed the lawsuit should hang their heads in shame. Disgusting, outrageous and near Medieval practices that should not be tolerated in a civilized society when thieves who stole BILLIONS are sleeping in their feather beds.

It's utterly ridiculous that anybody, let alone a senior citizen should be jailed indefinitely for not sodding his lawn ! Murderers and child molesters receive bail and this man gets no bail ! How does this judge expect this man to follow the court order when he isn't financially able to do it? Sixty six years old, no criminal record, never been locked up and this is how a law abiding citizen is treated, everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves.


The homeowners association could have shown a little compassion for their fellow nieghbor, and instead of spending almost a thousand dollars on taking him to court they could have donated way less money than that and sodded his yard for him, helping out someone going through hard times. Since he's paying a mortgage the house really still belongs to the bank, so maybe they should hold the bank responsible for keeping the lawn green.


I can not believe that these people put a green lawn above someone's freedom. I hope they all get a massive dose of karmic retribution. This is just infuriating

What it comes down to is that this guy is abusing the environment.

He's killing grass, letting it die. When you let your pets die, you go to jail!

He let his grass die, he goes to jail!

all is fair.

[edit on 11-10-2008 by logician magician]

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I would have replanted grass seed. Who needs sod in Florida? It's warm enough there to grow grass all year. Depending on the condition of the lawn (any roots left), a top dressing of sifted compost could bring that thing back to life. The homeowner association and the legal system are out of line.

reply to post by logician magician

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My god man. Where is your common sense? If you condone this outrageous abuse of power you are as bad as those who put this guy in jail.

reply to post by stikkinikki

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I think you fail to realize the crux of the matter. Jailing him is unconstitutional and is outrageous. Why care about grass when someone's rights are revoked for a trivial matter?

What can you do to help your fellow man?
Don't look at them as Libs Or Dems.
Look at them as you do you kids.
They are just uneducated beings, they haven't been through it yet.
They can not see it.
They are souls like you, they just don't understand it yet.
What they wont or will accept is irrelevant.
I tell you this because, unfortunate as it is, eventually you are going to the same place that they are.

Court order or not, this is BS and unacceptable imo.

The judge who issued the order should be removed from the bench. The idiot councilman or association that enacted this requirement should be removed as well.

Better yet, someone should volunteer their services and load the lawn with decorative rock and cactus. LOL. There's your grass *snip*!

You'd think there would be more important issues for law to pursue.
Now this guy suffers, our tax dollars are paying for him to remain in jail, and a couple of tiny kings of tiny hills are getting a power trip erection.

nice *snip* life ain't it?


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[edit on 12/10/2008 by Badge01]

There is no common sense when it comes to contracts.

This man lived in an area where he had to keep his lawn looking nice or else suffer the consequences. He full well knew before he moved in that it was a possibility, and he still moved in. If he didn't pay attention to the details, then that is only his own fault.

How is it an abuse of power WHEN HE AGREED TO IT BY LIVING THERE?

I think you're just one of those types who doesn't accept personal responsibility for anything, or else you'd see that even though this is a sob sob story, it's only the guys own fault.

reply to post by logician magician

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Well imo the problem with that line of reasoning is it totaly lacks compashion for his finacial situation and is making his whole family suffer over the condition of his LAWN! Who is also to say those by-laws were inplace before he lived there, maybe they were recent additions to the by-law? If thats the case he lived there before this nonsense BS rule was in effect and imo nwas forced to alter the look of HIS property based on someone elses rules seens a bit wrong to me.a

It doesn't matter if the laws were there first or not. When he decided to live there, he decided to follow any and all present and future by-laws.

Don't go swimming in swamps if you don't want to get eaten by gators.