The Jaworskis: Definitely Neighbor Troubles

Kevin Libin tries to spin it as a case of Big Brother crushing the freedom-loving, but the guts of his story (which I've bolded) supports the case I made yesterday:

What’s happened since could be a case study for libertarian scholars on the pernicious effects of regulation on society, its power to threaten the well-being of individuals in the name of collective rights, to curtail enterprise, and to turn neighbour against neighbour as locals accuse each other of siccing state authority on each other in envy.

The Jaworskis aren’t sure why inspectors, after years of summer seminars, suddenly showed up on the property to itemize violations. There was a “complaint,” they were told, though they insist neighbours always seemed fine with the event, which drew 72 people this year, each paying $125 each ($75 for students). They recently turned their home into a bed and breakfast to make ends meet, marketing their pastoral property as a perfect spot for wedding planners. They suspect another hospitality business in the municipality of Clarington turned them in. They have no proof, but they have grown suspicious others are exploiting government to hurt them.

Furthermore, the Jaworski's aren't the only B&B in Clarington who've been subject to this kind of treatment:

Nancy Mallette runs Bloom Field Garden Centre in Clarington. Her website advertises that her property “is legally zoned … to hold your wedding ceremony and tented reception” so, she says, planners know they won’t have their events suddenly cancelled by regulators, as sometimes happens with unlicensed establishments. After trying to erect a tent on her picturesque property for her son’s wedding, someone complained. She spent 15 months and more than $100,000 to get proper zoning, including digging a new well and building new bathrooms.

[...]

She’s heard, too, that businesses have been reporting on each other to make trouble with regulators. Not her, she says. She thinks the region would prosper if everyone in the hospitality business were free to compete at their best.

In any case, I'm not sure I see the problem here as being the heavy hand of government. Neighbors using local by-law officers to diddle one another is an old story. I, for example, rented part of a house with a guy who was harassed by a neighbor via frivolous complaints made to the city (your lawn is unmowed, and so forth). This went on until the guy in my house figured out who was doing the complaining and began filing his own set of frivolous complaints (your tree hangs over my property). In this whole affair, the person with the best claim to "victimhood" was probably the by-law officer.

The Jaworskis, By-Law Officers, And Asshole Neighbors

So: I've swapped a couple of emails with Peter Jaworsksi, which I'll summarize here. Firstly it looks like my previous post contained an error. The services offered by the Jaworski's B&B have changed since they bought the rights to Willow Pond Bed and Breakfast in March of this year, and redubbed their old B&B, Hillside Estates , with the new name. Specifically, the kinds of corporate meeting events that might lead someone to think they were using the place as a "commercial conference center" have not taken place on the new property (at least until the LLS meet-up). The Jaworski's did advertise wedding events at the facility--and indeed did offer weddings at Hillside Estates--but stopped the adverts when informed in May that they were breaking by-laws by so doing. However, while the physical location of Willow Pond and the services it provided changed, its old website remained the same. Hence my confusion.

However, it does appear from Peter's emails that there have been several anonymous complaints levelled against the B&B in the last couple of months over wedding tents allegedly being up on the grounds, and these bogus complaints (there were no such tents) seem to have been what drove the municipal by-law officer to the property again and again. Since (I believe) by-law officers must respond to such complaints, I am more inclined to blame asshole neighbors for the Jaworski's troubles rather than over-zealous municipal officials, especially since the Js might have been out of compliance for a time under the old B&B name, which would give the officer a reason to be suspicious.

Save The Willow Pond Bed and Breakfast?

Dawg and a few others have written about the sad plight of the Willow Pond Bed and Breakfast, owned by the Jaworski's, parents of the Western Standard's Peter Jaworski. The official version of the story runs as follows:

Orono, ON: Due to an anonymous zoning complaint filed with the local municipality, husband and wife bed-and-breakfast proprietors Marta & Lech Jaworski may be forced to pay as much as $50,000 in fines for permitting their son, Peter, to use his family’s property to host the Liberty Summer Seminar, an annual seminar in support of liberty.

[...]

The Liberty Summer Seminar is a non-profit event for like-minded students and individuals hosted by the Institute for Liberal Studies, a registered charity in Canada.

Over the weekend of July 25, the LSS celebrated its tenth anniversary with a two-day event on the Orono property. On Sunday afternoon, as the event was wrapping up, a municipal law enforcement official arrived without notice in the car parking area. He quizzed a passing LSS participant about the event, asking him what had been served for lunch, as well as the cost of the registration fee, and the number of port-a-potties available. After a few minutes, the official left without attempting to speak to the Jaworski family

On August 12th, Marta and Lech Jaworski were each served with a summons to appear in court on the grounds that they had “allowed the use of land in an agricultural zone for a use other than a permitted residential use; namely for a commercial conference centre,” which is contrary to Clarington by-laws.* A first offence carries a maximum penalty of $25,000 upon conviction.

“The municipality tells me that they work on a complaint basis,” said Peter Jaworski, “although I don’t believe any of our immediate neighbours complained, since we’ve been doing this for nine years without a single complaint or problem, and being very public about it.”

A sad tale of bureaucracy gone mad and jack-booted thugs and etc. The Star gives the Jaworski's some sympathy. Dawg too thinks that something must be done.

OK, but I'm not there yet. For one thing, the Liberty Summer Seminar was not like a casual get-together of bloggers--it was, in particular, not a one off. Willow Pond offers to host events of a similar size on an on-going basis. Here's a screen-cap of the relevant page:
So, while the Liberty Summer Seminar may have triggered this particular complaint, it looks like you could make a good argument that, between April and October 15 of every year, the facility is indeed being operated as a "commercial conference center", contrary to local by-laws.

So, again, for the moment I am suspending my outrage.

Update: Here.