In our opinion
February 6, 2003
According to testimony in Calhoun County Circuit Court
this week, five years ago Ben Gregoria and his family moved into their
new home in the Spring Brook subdivision of Alexandria.
A few months later two meat companies bought adjacent
land and set up a slaughterhouse.
Residents of the nearby neighborhoods complained that
because of the smell, the noises and the insects their homes “ceased
to be a proper place of rest and repose from the cares and troubles
of the day” and when the company failed to address the situation
to their satisfaction residents sued.
Now at long last the case is being heard.
We maintain that most anyone who has visited the area
near the Gregoria home would sympathize. That is, if you don’t
much care for the thick odor of hog urine and feces in the air. This
isn’t some small-time butcher pen, mind you. This is an industrial
operation complete with sloshing rendering trucks, and so forth.
Still, it’s not up to this page to say whether or
not the plaintiffs’ are justified in their claims. That is for
the court to decide. However, this case points out, once again, how
our antiquated state constitution continues to make life difficult
for home and business owners alike.
Two of the points raised by the defendants highlight
the problem.
First, owners of the slaughterhouse claim the plant is
not in violation of any regulation. Maybe. For under our constitution
local governments are denied clear authority over such fundamental
matters as zoning.
But the problem goes deeper than that. The defendants
also argued that animal noises such as those coming from their plant
are just part of living in the country.
Well, we doubt that the squeals of pigs being slaughtered
are normal county noises but that is not the point.
The point is that Alexandria and the area around it is
no longer country — it is suburban. And yet our constitution,
written by agricultural interests for an agricultural society and
preserved, in no small degree, by an agricultural lobby has not allowed
our government to adapt to the 21st century.
So as you watch this trial progress, keep in mind that
this is more than a controversy over a huge stinking hog pen. It is
a clash between what we were and what we should be.
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