Date:         Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:50:52 -0400
Reply-To:     Jason Willenbrock <pooncerelli@HOTMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Jason Willenbrock <pooncerelli@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject:      LVC:almost got syncro confiscated very long
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed

hey all,
this contains very little vanagon content so move if not interested. this
goes out to any law type people on the list.   and if any of you have advice
please pmail me.
so yesterday, Father's day, i went morel mushroom picking here in westen
montana. I know that in order to pick commercially you need a permit. i was
not, however, aware that if you are picking for
personal consumption you are breaking a federal law if you do not have a
permit.

i arrived at the trail head on saturday, in my 87 syncro westy, i drove up
to a couple of forest service law enforcement guys that were on the side of
the road and i asked them if this was the such and such trail head (not
giving away my location, sorry) and they responded " yep right up that road"
.  that was is it.  they knew i was there to pick mushrooms because that's
what all the traffic was up there for the past week.  they never said make
sure you got a permit or even asked me if i had one.

so i got to trail head and for 2 days was pickin like mad, the little
beauties were everywhere!  must have picked close to 5-5 gallon buckets
worth.  could have kept going but my back was blowing out and i was so dirty
were charred forest i looked like i was fighting forest fires.  i met up
with friends later that day who were also in the area picking.  i camped out
with them saturday.  we cooked morel mushroom stroganoff with marinated
flank steak, morels in a cream sauce with pasta, and for breakfast, what
else, scrambled eggs and morels, oh what a treat! so on sunday they hitched
a ride with me in my syncro and we began driving out of the area down the
forest road happy as smurfs with our mushroom take.

then things went down hill.  I need to point out that the syncro is purring,
this road is not too burly but i did some off roading and all i can say is i
love this van. as we turned a bend in the road, the same exact forest
service guy from the day before, has about 7 people stopped on the side of
the road and appeared to be ticketing them and the flatbed of his truck is
full of  confiscated buckets of mushrooms.  as i approached he flagged us
down and i immediately thought oh fudge! whats going on here.  i rolled down
my window and he said "how was the mushroom harvest guys?"  not being a
commercial picker i responded "mushroom harvest?"  he took that comment as
us trying to hide something so began walking around the my syncro looking
into all the windows to find something in plain view to use as probable
cause to proceed with us further.  sure enough he spotted my friends
mushrooms in the rear hatch window, came up back to my window and said "pull
on up by my truck, we have some business to take care of."  at this point i
was cool, thinking he thought we were commerical, which we were not, and he
was just going to make us cut the mushrooms in half, so even if we were
commercial, we could not sell them.

so, we pulled over to his truck and we got out of the van.  he was already
on the defense (i presumed that because his truck was full of confiscated
shrooms and he was already busting some other people)  and asked my friends
for their permits.  He never asked me one question other then when we were
initially stopped.  my friends explained we were not commercial we were
picking for ourselves.  he said that we still needed a permit for that.  My
friends said that we did not know that.  he further stated the the permit
was free of charge, you just have to drive to one of the forest stations
(which was about an hour drive) mon-fri from 9-5.  my buddy then said what's
the point of having a free permit to pick mushrooms on OUR public lands
which WE own thru our tax dollars and how were we supposed to obtain a
permit when we all have full time jobs.  the ranger was beginning to shut
down at that point, dialogue was becoming futile i could tell.  he then told
us that we were picking illegally and that he was going to go ahead and
ticket all of us and confiscate our mushrooms.  That's when my buddy may
have made thing worse but was right in saying something.  he explained to
the officer that was BS because for the last three years he has been working
with enviro groups to protect these very lands that we stood on.
additionally he added that because he makes very little money and was
already a regular the food bank, this was his first time picking muchroom
that was going to be used to feed his family, now he was going to be hit
with a 125 dollar ticket on top of that.  he said that's just plain wrong,
especially for a free permit that they give to anyone (except for the
working man who can't drive an hour and meet normal business hours because
of our jobs).  you can't even get this permit thru the mail or on line which
is silly because i get all my fishing etc... permits on line no problem.  at
this point the officer had enough and was going back to his truck to issue
us tickets. i was getting pretty ticked off at what was taking place before
me, since i was under the illusion that what i was doing and have been doing
for years, was perfectly legal.

At this same moment a fellow mushroom extrodinaire appeared out of the
forest. all he was holding was a video camera, no mushrooms.  this gentleman
happened to be a friend of my friends, and he also happens to be an
authority on mushrooms and such.  this guy began video taping my buddy's
statement and what had happend and proceeded to video tape the forest ranger
and his truck and all that that he had confiscated.  a mountain bike was
even confiscated by someone using it to ride the trails and pick mushrooms.
he then asked the officer if he'd like to comment, but was declined.

a few moments later the officer came back with our citations which read
illegal removal of forest property. $125 fine.  That sucked! he also
photographed us and my syncro (which i believe was for his personal use hee
hee)  he said that he did not believe we did not know we had to have
permits.
so I exclaimed that there were no frickin signs and when i arrived yesterday
and spoke directly with the officer, he informed me nothing of needing a
permit, and even gave me directions. My buddy said why can't you just let us
keep the mushrooms?  the officer who had no patience left for him was done
with us and said we can take this up with the federal magistrate (which we
will)  and if we have any more to say to him he was going to confiscate my
syncro (i guess because it was transporting highly illegal contrband!)
Naturally we shut up as nothing further could be said to this jerk. i don't
think he had the power to take my rig but i was done with him anyways.

So we drove off mad as hell and 2 buckets light of  mushrooms and $375
poorer.  oh yeah i forgot mention, he only saw my friends mushrooms in plain
view, never searched my van, so he never discovered my massive qauntity of
morels happily hiding in the closet and in various cabinets, GOD BLESS
WSETY"S! i only put them in those spaces to make room for my friends and
their gear and to keep my 2 dogs from crushing them.

So now, what to do, i am going to fight this not based on monetary value but
based on principle.  we pay for these lands, morels are naturally occuring
phenomena and tasty.  it IS our right to pick these for personal use.  As
far as the permit goes, why are we paying a forest service officer (which
make more money then regular forest rangers) to drive up and down an area on
wekends no less busting people for doing something that is perfectly legal
with a free permit?  would our tax dollars be better used by maybe putting
one lower payed forest service personal at a station near where all the
picking is going on to hand out permit?  or better yet, there are self
check-in campgrounds where you have to pay by the honor system, why can't
there be self check-in for FREE permits to pick wild mushrooms?  makes no
sense.  i am going to let this go to court, may still end up paying the fine
and legal fees, but this is stupid and somebody needs to get the message out
about how silly this is and what a horrible watse of tax dollars this is.
these are our public lands, we own them, mushroom picking is one of the
perfectly legal uses we are allowed to do.  the free permit makes no sense.

i would love to hear input on this from any legal, enviro experts about my
case.  save you emails if you are going to just flame this because you do
not agree, i am not looking to start a three week long thread with everyones
opinion that colgs up everyones already overloaded mail boxes, just pmail me
don't bring it to the list.
Thanks for letting me vent and oh yeah, i have about 5 screen doors worth of
morels drying in my garage illegally picked apparently, but taste mighty
fine!
jason
87 syncro westy (fungi blackmarket mobile)

so many roads to ease my soul....