I haven’t blogged about this much but here’s an update on the liberty summer seminar and the Jaworski’s .
From Tim Mak
Every year, Peter Jaworski and the non-profit Institute for Liberal Studies organize a gathering, the Liberty Summer Seminar, to celebrate individual liberties. Attendees from across North America have flocked to the Jaworski family’s home in Orono, Ontario over the last ten years to hear live music, meet with old friends and listen to libertarian-themed lectures.
But after nine years without conflict, a complaint is now threatening the event, and Jaworski’s parents face a fine of up to $50,000.
Before the event this year, health department officers contacted the Jaworskis and told them that their kitchen and cleaning facilities were not up to code. The event had to be catered. At great expense, they catered this year’s seminar.
Two weeks after this year’s event, the Jaworskis were charged anyhow – with running a commercial conference center on land zoned agricultural. This despite the event being organized by a non-profit, and, well, basically resembling a large BBQ.
It has since been revealed that the complaint which launched this entire mess was made by a woman who lived a 24 minute drive away from the seminar – which rules out the traditional disputes over noise and traffic. Peter Jaworski tells FrumForum that his actual neighbors haven’t complained about either.
Instead, the complainant hosts weddings and wedding receptions – a field of business that the Jaworski family had recently announced they were going to enter. Jaworski tells FrumForum that the likely motive behind the complaint was that the businesswoman was trying to place barriers to competition.
The irony of the whole situation is not lost on the younger Jaworski. Not only is a celebration of freedom being nixed by overbearing bylaws, but Jaworski tells FrumForum that his family fled Communist Poland in 1984 to escape a government which refused to – among other things – guarantee the right to assemble peacefully.
