Page 89 - Summer2018

RAW MILK UPDATES by Pete Kennedy, Esq.

MINNESOTA – RAID ON LOCAL FOOD BUYERS CLUB
In the continuation of an eight-year government assault on freedom of food choice, officials from the Minnesota
Department of Agriculture (MDA), the Minneapolis Department of Health (MDH) and city police have shut down
the physical location for the private buyers club, Uptown Locavore, embargoing thousands of dollars of nutrient-
dense food in the process, including raw dairy products and grass-fed meats. The Locavore connects farmers and
club members, enabling consumers to obtain foods they would not be able to purchase at a retail store.
On May 3rd, MDA and MDH officials along with a police officer executed an administrative search warrant to
inspect the property that served as a distribution point for the buyers club; the official’s visit turned into more than
just an inspection. The officials embargoed every food product they came across, including the personal food items
of Will Winter, longtime leader in the Twin Cities local food community and owner-manager of the Locavore. The
embargo notices MDH left at the location stated that the buyers club could not conduct business until “conditions
set forth are met and the embargo is lifted.”
City officials also posted an “Unlicensed Business” notice on the property stating that the Uptown Locavore
is unlicensed and that “further operation of this business is a criminal act and subject to criminal complaint and/or
arrest.” The catch-22 for the Uptown Locavore was that, if it did get licensed, it would not be able to provide many
of the nutritious foods it currently makes available to club members.
Winter responded to the enforcement action by going to the media to get out his side of the story. He pointed
out that the search warrant was given by a judge merely to determine whether the buyers club was operating an
unlicensed business; nothing was mentioned in the warrant application about confiscating food or shutting down
the Locavore. Winter explained to the media that his private club should not have to obtain a business license
because it does not sell or distribute any food to the general public; his location is not open to the public but only
to club members.
Winter remarked that all transactions were between consenting adults and were done between a farmer or
artisan producer and informed consumers. He emphasized that there had been zero complaints about the Locavore.
He commented that the government “instead of using their resources to pursue real criminals and real crime….
waste their day trying to destroy people they don’t understand and then seem to hate… this unjustified persecution
of people doing the right things makes me very unhappy to be American.”
The May 3rd raid wasn’t the first time the food police had shut down a private food distribution facility established
by Winter. In 2010, state and city officials raided and permanently shut down the Traditional Foods Warehouse in
Minneapolis, a devastating loss for the local food community. The Traditional Foods Warehouse had rapidly become
an institution in the Twin Cities; at one time it boasted eighteen hundred members. There has never really been
anything like it anywhere in the U.S. before or since its demise.
The year 2010 also was when MDA stepped up its enforcement campaign against famers distributing to informed
consumers, foods that the department claimed were “illegal,” targeting dairy farmer Mike Hartmann and poultry
farmer Alvin Schlangen. MDA raided both farmers in 2010 and subsequently had both criminally prosecuted.
MDA went after Hartmann because it suspected dairy products the farmer produced were responsible for eight
cases of foodborne illness in the Twin Cities area. The state’s initial testing indicated there was a match between
the pathogenic bacteria responsible for the illnesses and bacteria found on the Hartmann farm but the Minnesota
Department of Health did many subsequent tests to strengthen its assertion that Hartmann farm dairy products
were the cause of the illness. There was no match in any of these tests.
Hartmann pled guilty to two charges of violating the Minnesota food and dairy code, but only to stop MDA
from criminally prosecuting his wife as well as a sixty-eight-year-old woman on disability who was helping his farm.
The lowest point in MDA’s enforcement tactics came when two MDA officials, three plainclothes policemen and
two Bloomfield city officials executed a search warrant at the private residence of Rae Lynn Sandvig whose driveway
served as a drop site for Hartmann. The policemen met Sandvig at her bedroom door shortly after 8 AM telling her
to go downstairs to her kitchen. Policemen went into the bedroom of Sandvig’s children ordering them to do the
same. When Sandvig arrived in her kitchen she found the two MDA officials and the two city employees peering
into the family’s refrigerator; the family kept no foods from Hartmann’s farm in their refrigerator or freezer other
than those for personal consumption. MDA considered prosecuting Sandvig but subsequently dropped her case.
MDA prosecuted Schlangen twice for criminal violations of the state food and dairy code; a jury acquitted
him of all charges. Hartmann and Schlangen remain in business continuing to provide nutritious food to informed
consumers.
Hartmann is suing MDA over an illegal search and seizure the department conducted on his delivery truck

SUMMER 2018 Wise Traditions 87