No Chili For You!!! Health Dept. Zealots Kill Cook-Offs

For the second time in as many weeks, officials in the St. Lawrence County office of the New York State Department of Health put on their jackboots and stomped out a charity chili cook-off.

Why? Because they can.

Oh, they'll tell us it's for our own good. Someone could get food poisoning, they say, or even e-coli! These kinds of events are a public health hazards! Dozens, if not hundreds, of people could get sick! Or even DIE!!!!

Or maybe, just maybe, a bunch of people could get together, enjoy each other's company, share some good ol' homemade chili and raise a few bucks for a good cause - like we've been doing for decades - with no death, no mayhem, no epidemic of illness, no real problems whatsoever save for some stained shirts and stretched belts.

Please, save us the melodrama and over-reaching bureaucracy.

If these events are so dangerous, why are they still held all over New York State and the country for that matter?

More to the point, why can be held in far off exotic locations like Jefferson County, or Franklin County, or Clinton County?

Because those places are outside the jurisdiction of the St. Lawrence County office of the New York State Department of Health, that's why!

These people (well really just one in particular but her boss let's it happen) are extremists who are laughed at by health officials in other counties. They were trained by the no-less-extreme former director who now works in Albany.

You see, the problem is the chili is cooked in people's homes and the DOH can't control the conditions there. They say that leaves open the possibility of contamination.

But I thought if you boiled something for two minutes that would pretty much kill any offending bacteria? When did that part of elementary science change?

And if it hasn't changed, why can't we just boil the chili for two minutes and serve away? (I would serve mine like that at home anyway.)

A recent "Sound Off" on the North County Now website wondered if church dinners or fireman's field days would be the next targets.

Well, the truth is that our local health department extremists would love to shut those down too because God knows they are all just food poisoning "accidents waiting to happen." But the wily old bureaucrats know if they go that far, every state politician's phone would be ringing off the hook and those pols would then call the DOH bosses in Albany, and we all know that bureaucratic sewage flows downhill to the county level.

That's why they have left those venues alone to date. They can get away with killing a chili cook-off or two, but church suppers and field days are a different matter.

Here's a true case that illustrates my point:

A few years ago, I worked as a volunteer at the county fair. Our booth was located across the midway from a downstate barbecue vendor who served up some mighty tasty chicken and ribs. On the last day of the fair I asked him how he did. He said business was great, couldn't ask for better.....but he'd never come back up here.

"Why's that," I asked.

"Because your health department up here is crazy!" he said. "I cook at 40 county fairs and no where have I ever been harassed like I have been up here!"

Isn't that sad? And aren't we worse off as a county because of it?

The heavy-handed approach by the state health officials is bad for business and totally unnecessary.

That's is why I have asked and will continue to ask the St. Lawrence County Department of Health to take over the food inspection duties from the zealots at the state health department.

If our county officials did that, as many other counties do, we could send the extreme bureaucrats packing down to Albany where they can try to justify their existence instead of hassling local businesses and not-for-profit charitable events like chili cook-offs.

I would encourage you to make a similar call to our county health department.