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A judge in August sided with the cannabis and duck farmer, but his neighbors are pursuing an appeal of that decision.
Story Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship.
Jason Struthers makes a living selling the cannabis he’s licensed to grow in his half-acre backyard in Essex Junction — but his growing and raising of ducks on his property has gotten him into tiffs with neighbors and tangled in legal ambiguity.
In August, Vermont Superior Court Judge Thomas Walsh sought to put the question over the Taft Street backyard to rest, siding with Struthers after the Essex Junction resident sued when local officials tried to ban him from raising ducks last year. But now an appeal from Struthers’ neighbors could call the ruling — and legal precedent — into question again.
It seems straightforward to next-door neighbors Stephen and Sharon Wille Padnos, who say they shouldn’t have to smell Struthers’ cannabis or hear his ducks in their residential neighborhood. In turn, it seems straightforward to Struthers, who has legal permission from the state to farm and cultivate in his yard.
Struthers sees his ducks as essential to his cannabis farming because he uses their manure to fertilize his plants, he told Community News Service last year. He sells their eggs, along with vegetables he grows, and says he meets the standard to legally label his operation a farm.
Walsh, of the Vermont Superior Court’s environmental division, determined in August that Essex Junction officials can’t regulate Struthers’s farming or his cannabis growing because both are protected by state law. It was the first time the court had ruled on the two legal issues at hand, Walsh wrote in court documents.
When city officials barred Struthers from raising ducks, they misconstrued language in laws about agriculture regulation in a way that “would upend” longstanding practices in Vermont, Walsh wrote in an Aug. 7 decision.
In the same decision, Walsh wrote that he was inclined to rule that Struthers’ cannabis operation also was exempt from municipal regulation under state law. He invited all the parties to file paperwork on that question by Aug. 20, then ultimately ruled in Struthers’ favor in an Aug. 29 order.
Now the Wille Padnos family is appealing the decision, opening up the case for review again.
“I am very confident,” said Struthers, explaining he thinks the court will rule in his favor one more time.
But neighbors are still upset he’s allowed to farm and grow weed when he lives in an area zoned as residential by the city.
“It’s been pretty tough,” Wille Padnos said, explaining that his wife didn’t want to be outside in their yard for a long time, so they paid to put up a new tall fence between the properties. In the past year the couple’s same qualms over the smell and sound still stand, he said, and not much has changed.
The saga came to wider attention when the Wille Padnos family and other neighbors complained in an Essex Junction Developmental Review Board meeting in September 2023. The city tried to stop his operation — before deciding they couldn’t fight his growing license from the state and renewing his license ever since.
Then the city’s development review board decided last September that Struthers couldn’t have his ducks in a residential area. Struthers filed a lawsuit contesting the decision — which is what Walsh ruled on this past summer.
In court papers from August, Walsh reasoned that Struthers’ duck raising is exempt from municipal regulation because it is a necessary farming practice protected by state law. They also reasoned his weed cultivation is protected by his license and exempt from local regulation.
“It was basically a slam dunk,” Struthers said. But he also said the suit was more than he bargained for. “I want to focus my time on other things,” he said.
Wille Padnos decided to appeal because “it seems wrong,” he said. He and his wife, who both grew up in Vermont and have lived in Essex Junction for years, are thinking about moving out of state if they lose the appeal, he said.
Struthers could be forced to close his operation or relocate in the coming years even if he wins the appeal, once the city takes advantage of a state law passed this June. The law lets municipalities create cannabis cultivation districts for all outdoor cultivators to grow in those zones.
Wille Padnos is hopeful things will go his way. “I hope he can make his business work,” he said of Struthers, “but where he should.”
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Categories: Agriculture
I don’t see how you can be against weed or ducks…
Ducks no… But geese, I hate geese
The weed you so frenetically pursue is quite dangerous according to the CDC – but most frightening of all, it has the propensity to kill.
Why not ask your hip young neighbor – young Steven Bourgoin who killed five while high on your benign & harmless and wonderous miracle drug?
Want more examples? There are hundreds online – most in states that wanted its citizens stupid & legalized yet another intoxicant.
Keep toking; it’s obviously working as planned right here in VT!
Keep drinking Jim, it helps with denial
@Jim Henry – You are ignorant. The Cannabis plant saves and improves many lives, while 80+% of people have taken medications from their doctors that have “homicide” listed in the side effects label. If someone went wacko, I can almost guarantee they at some point had their brain damaged by these wonderful chemicals PHDs are handing out to 5 year olds, or people that “feel sad”. Do your research.
I personally don’t like any mind altering substances, but I do recognize that we should be free to do whatever we want with plants as long as it doesn’t trespass on anyone else’s freedoms. (like invasive plants, etc)
However, if you haven’t homesteaded ducks or plants, if those actions negatively effect your neighbors, they have a right to use the local governments to protest your actions. If they were always growing plants and ducks prior to the neighbors moving in, they have already created precedent and there is no legitimate protest by a new neighbor. Common law works great.
I guess there is three issues here.
1. Did the State specifically say he can grow cannabis in his back yard or is the permission general in nature relative to his business. If the State did not specifically state he can grow it in back yard – then the ruling needs to be reversed. He can grow cannabis – a business somewhere else.
The state grants many people permission own and do business – but the businesses needs to comply with local ordinances – like commercially or retail or home business etc. designated areas.
2. Can the Sate trample local zoning rules? No!
3. There may be health issues. and nuisance laws being violated.
they guys got a business then he can rent some land from a farmer and help the farmer.
I have bizarre neuro-metabolic problems. Lifelong. Likely, I wouldn’t even be alive if not for marijuana.
However, my body really gets sick on duck eggs. That doesn’t mean that no one else should be allowed to consume them.
It certainly WOULD – if consuming duck eggs were dangerous & led directly to fatal automobile crashes via motor skill depletion, led to increased risk of schizophrenia, psychosis, hallucinations, addiction, permanence of lower IQ levels, Cannabis Hyperemesis Syndrome, etc.
And your argument is long moot as VT long ago allowed for medical marijuana to be legal – DESPITE their being NO verifiable research that proves any medical benefit – so that you could enjoy your drug of choice from the pharmacy of your choice. But that wasn’t what you & “Chris” wanted at all – you wanted freedom to get high on THC without fear of the law. Stop the nonsense.
@james jim henry – We don’t need your government violence to prevent people from doing things you don’t like. You are confusing motor skill depletion with Alcohol intoxication. No one is advocating for driving under the influence. You logic is no different than the “Guns are killing people” crowd.
There is no increased risk of schizophrenia in people who don’t already have schizophrenia. Some people with schizophrenia get better results from cannabis than dangerous medications (the ones that say homicide on the side effects label).
“psychosis, hallucinations, addiction, permanence of lower IQ levels, Cannabis Hyperemesis Syndrome, etc.” – This is all bullcrap. It’s one of the most popular substance known to man legal or not. The “lower IQ” study was a hoax, where they suffocated and tortured monkeys with cannabis smoke, not allowing them to get oxygen. If this plant was a serious problem like your unqualified opinion makes it out to be, we all would know about it. Likely more than 30% of everyone you have ever interacted with uses cannabis.
Alcohol is more damaging in every single category. Until you fixate your hatred on ALL substances worse than cannabis equally, you are just being a hypocrite, who is easily fooled. What branch of the CIA do you work in?