bigstockphoto_Handcuffs__17502.jpgNew York state continues to tighten the screws on Barb and Steve Smith, the operators of Meadowsweet Dairy in Lodi. Over what? Over their decision to establish a herd share organized as a limited liability company, and make raw milk dairy products available exclusively to the LLC’s 120-plus shareholders.

The immediate issue concerns a search warrant issued to the NY Department of Agriculture and Markets in December. Barb and Steve twice refused to open locked areas of their farm, including their inventory of raw milk products, to the inspectors. They acted on the advice of their lawyer, Gary Cox of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, who maintained the warrants didn’t explicitly authorize the inspectors the use of “force” to gain access to locked places.

Now Ag and Markets has returned to the state judge who issued the warrant, and obtained a “show cause” order as to why the Smiths shouldn’t be held in contempt of court. A hearing is scheduled February 28, and if the Smiths are found in contempt and fined, and still refuse “to perform an act or duty, which is yet in the power of the offender to perform, he shall be imprisoned only until he has performed it, and paid the fine imposed.”

In other words, the state could lock the Smiths up and throw away the keys until they open their coolers to the state to confiscate and destroy raw milk and raw milk yogurt, buttermilk, butter, and cream—items that belong to the shareholders. Actually, come to think of it, shouldn’t the state lock up all the shareholders as well? The LLC is a target of the the show-cause order.

This is VERY serious stuff, maintains the state. Barb and Steve Smith are a direct threat to the safety of all 19 million New Yorkers. According to the show-cause order, “The acts of Steven and Barbara Smith d/b/a Meadowsweet Yogurt and Meadowsweet Dairy LLC constituted a violation of duty owed by it to the Commissioner and to the People of the State of New York whose health and general welfare the Commissioner is charged by statute to protect and that the Commissioner herein has no other remedy available except by way of contempt…”

Yes, big bad Barb and Steve are preventing the poor little commissioner Patrick Hooker from protecting all the desperate people of New York, who are crying out for his protection. Don’t you hear them crying out? Yes, I think I hear them… “Protect us from this raw milk, protect us from the criminals producing it… Oh, Commissioner Patrick Hooker, forget about the murderers and rapists out there. You’ve got to get the Smiths off the street, er farm, so they don’t destroy us…Oh please, Sir, please…”

Pretty amazing what this country has come to. Think the scandal-fighter Gov. Eliot Spitzer might hear about this, and question whether this is the kind of scandal his soldiers of public safety should be fighting?

This matter has been going on since last March, when Barb and Steve decided they’d had enough of Ag and Markets’ increasingly aggressive inspections of their raw milk dairy. They turned in their raw milk permit and formed the LLC instead, with most of their shareholders coming from nearby Ithaca.

Since then, Ag and Markets has engaged in a steady campaign of escalation of tactics against the Smiths, including surprise inspections, and two sets of hearings designed to hamper their operations or even shut them down. Curiously, Ag and Markets has sought out this contempt order just at the time a decision is expected on the second hearing, which took place over three days last month.

The Smiths filed suit against Ag and Markets in December, seeking an end to the harassment, based on the fact that their LLC is a private arrangement between shareholders, and doesn’t involve public availability of the LLC’s dairy products. A judge recently refused a request by Ag and Markets to dismiss the suit, and moved it to another court.

The creative juices are definitely flowing over at Ag and Markets. I suspect there hasn’t been this much innovation over there in a long time. Nothing like locking a couple of hard-working farmers up to make a commissioner feel young again.