Great Moments in Regulation
After over three years of effort, and many, many checks written to numerous departments, Ventura County has granted us the right to operate a fuel tank at a particular location near Lake Piru, CA. This is actually a huge improvement, and will be much safer and less liable to create a spill than the current methods of schlepping around zillions of 5-gallon cans in a pickup truck.
However, we still have not, after 3 years of trying, obtained a permit from self-same Ventura County to install said tank. So it is currently legal for us to own, posses, and operate a fuel tank at the permitted location but still illegal for us to install one there.
The tank we purchased 3-years ago in the naive hope all this permitting could be done in a month or two will probably be rusted out by the time we can actually install it.
Chris K.:
Put it on a permanent trailer? It isn't "installed" right?
June 23, 2011, 2:08 pmDave:
You need a secret, anonymous blog where you can vent about this stuff without risking the wrath of the central planners you have to deal with. If you start one, please send me the url!
June 23, 2011, 2:22 pmRoy:
Or, better yet, name those you deal with, inviting them to explain how their reasoning. Sort of like taking pictures of police in public places.
June 23, 2011, 2:54 pmsteve:
thats what you get for following the law.
June 23, 2011, 4:48 pmTed Rado:
My girlfriend is a retired retail shop owner. Before her retirement, I was astonished at the time and effort it took to do all the paperwork required by government authorities. One is not permitted to just plain do something. You have to drag an elephant through a knothole first. If the object of government is to stifle business and discourage entrpreneurship, they are certainly hitting on all eight cylinders.
I am glad I worked for a large corporation and didn't have to do that stupid stuff. I would have punched some idiot bureaucrat in the nose and landed in jail. My hat's off to those of you who have the determination and patience to deal with it!
June 23, 2011, 5:00 pmLoneSnark:
So, if some clandestine intruders illegally installed the tank one night and then got away, you would be allowed to keep it?
June 23, 2011, 9:16 pmed:
People always complain about the Federal government, but to me state and local governments seem worse. (The silver lining is that it is much easier to move out of state than out of the country.)
June 24, 2011, 12:45 amcaseyboy:
Coyote, what is it, your own special April's Fool Day? Another outrageous story of government incompetence. Are we to believe that the county would approve the purchase and use of a fuel tank, but not the installation? Why that would be like making oil refineries meet a certain cellulosic ethanol content ratio when cellulosic ethanol is not even available. Come on, you want us to think the people we elect and/or appoint to government positions are imbeciles? Really?
June 24, 2011, 6:34 amMark:
The CEO of Carl's Jr (Hardees in the Midwest), a California company, complained recently when asked about what CA could do to help business, and when he explained why many more restaurants are being built in Texas.
In Texas, you can get a Carl's Jr built and operating in 6 - 8 weeks. In California it takes 6 months to 2 years due to all the extra regulatory hurdles. And I doubt, in Texas, they are destroying the environment by spilling their waste grease in the street.
June 24, 2011, 7:58 amTed Rado:
Everything the government touches turns to poopoo. Now, they are trying to run the entire economy. They decide, via subsidies, where R&D money should go, what industries should prosper, etc. The Soviets tried this government management idea with dismal results. I guess we have to repeat it to prove we are collectively idiots. My concern is that all this will lead to such total disillusionment with the government (both fed and local) that we will have riots in the streets and worse. Governments only work if they are perceived to be effective and fair. To say ours is niether is an understatement.
June 24, 2011, 8:20 amcaseyboy:
Come on guys, you can't be taking Coyote seriously? He has to be kidding us right? Right?
Ted Rado, in the future when speaking about the government please refrain from using poopoo. The people poopoo. The government do-doo's all the time.
June 24, 2011, 10:39 amRick C:
"Put it on a permanent trailer? It isn’t “installed” right?"
That was my first thought, too. Find out what "installed" mean, and set it up so it's not "installed." Perhaps fit a quick-disconnect hose to it.
"So, if some clandestine intruders illegally installed the tank one night and then got away, you would be allowed to keep it?"
This is California, right? Hire some illegals to do it. That should make it safe from government interference, assuming what I've read on VDH's blog is correct.
June 24, 2011, 12:15 pm