Brickbat: Sunflower Showdown

Chris Bank of St. Peters, Missouri, is in the fourth year of a legal battle with the city over growing sunflowers in his front yard. Officials first said his sunflowers broke a rule requiring at least a 50–50 ratio of flowers to grass. Bank disputed the violation, which the city dropped. But in 2025, the city changed the ordinance, classifying sunflowers as a crop and limiting them to 10 percent of a front yard. Bank has refused to remove his plants and plans to fight the city in court.

Comments

[SQRLSY]

Dear Orange Shitler hath shown us The Truth and The Way!

https://reason.com/2025/09/17/trump-has-a-habit-of-asserting-broad-unreviewable-authority/

If Orange Shitler sees and acknowledges NO limits to His Authority, then WHY, Satan, WHY? (To quote Little Cindy Lou Who, Who was no more than two.)

Having seen NO limits to Their Authority, St. Peters's Dickheads Power-Whore-Slutty-City Dorkhead officials ADORE Orange-Shitler-like moves, and see NOTHING wrong with DickTating grass-to-flowers ratios, and spitefully passing NEW laws just to punish their enemas!

See The Book of Trump, The Gospel of Trump, 666, verses 36 to 92.

[Vernon Depner]

Ex post facto law.

[Rossami]

Almost certainly not. A law that says 'after X date, your property must Y' is clearly defensible as long as (X-today) is enough time to do Y. That's the ADA in its entirety. That same approach can be used with zoning and similar laws. And since sunflowers have to be reseeded each year (and are pretty easy to tear out even within the year), 'enough time' is probably measured in days, weeks at most.

Ex post facto means you did Y on X date, I change the law after X but charge you for violating the law on X regardless.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Always eternally grateful that I don't have neighbors.

[Wizzle Bizzle]

Rub it in, why don't you.

[Chumby]

Missouri is now known as the Grow Me state.

[GroundTruth]

What were the regulations at the time when he bought the house?

[Dillinger]

>>Sunflower Showdown

Go Cats!

[Minadin]

This was my first thought as well.

Also, boo.

[KiwiDude]

So there is something left to cut, this guys sunflowers

[charliehall]

"requiring at least a 50–50 ratio of flowers to grass"

We have no grass at all on our lot in NYC. Blue City in Blue State. More freedom.