Kelo-a-Go-Go

Here's good news on the eminent domain front in Ohio:

Cincinnati must pay $335,000 in attorney and witness fees to the owners of two fast-food restaurants in Clifton Heights who successfully challenged Cincinnati's right to use eminent domain.

That's the ruling by Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Ralph Winkler, whose written decision included a stern scolding of Cincinnati for the way it tried to take the owners' properties.

"The City of Cincinnati should in the future be very careful when it initiates eminent domain proceedings against private-property owners," he wrote. "In this case, the city lost taxpayers' money to legal fees and expenses."

The city was trying to demolish an Arby's and a Hardee's in an area they bogusly claimed was blighted. More here.

Read reason's interview with Scott Bullock, the attorney who argued Kelo v. New London in front of the U.S. Supreme Court here.

And here's our whole megillah on eminent domain abuse.