Government regulations have gotten completely out of control.
Cherished Constitutional freedoms are being turned into crimes.
And now a beloved teacher was arrested for selling his truck for this shocking reason.
Retired teacher convicted for putting for sale in sign his truck
Will Cramer retired from his job as a high school geometry and biology teacher in Nazareth, Pennsylvania.
After his retirement, he wanted to spend a year in the Philippines teaching English.
Before this trip, Cramer decided to sell his 1987 Chevrolet truck.
He used the time-tested sales tactic of putting a “For Sale” sign in the front window of the truck while it was parked outside of his house.
“I was retiring, and I was finally going to move to another country, so there was urgency to sell my truck,” Cramer said. “I wanted to sell some of my items and not take them with me. I didn’t want to store them.”
Nazareth has a city ordinance that makes it illegal to have for sale signs on vehicles that are parked on the street.
Cramer discovered that he had received a ticket for trying to sell his truck.
“When I pulled the ticket out from underneath the windshield wiper blade and I looked at it, I was actually receiving a ticket for putting a ‘for sale’ sign and then advertising my car for sale,” Cramer explained. “I wasn’t angry, I wasn’t mad, I was just trying to take it in.”
He didn’t have a driveway at his home and the truck was legally parked on the street.
“Like, is this for real? Am I getting a ticket for putting a for-sale sign on my truck?” Cramer added.
Cramer pulled the truck onto his lawn and eventually found a buyer for it.
He decided to pay the ticket and put the situation behind him.
“I just paid it, I wanted to get it over with,” Cramer said. “And then I went back home to try to finish the rest of the things that I had to do to complete before I could leave.”
But Nazareth mailed him his check back and claimed that he owed additional penalties.
“At this point, I got kind of angry because I thought it was bad enough that they violated my freedom of speech,” Cramer stated. “Now they want more money because they didn’t get the ticket exactly on the date that they needed it.”
The borough convicted him of violating the ordinance and slapped him with a $123.75 penalty.
Teacher sues over absurd ordinance against for sale signs
Now Cramer is partnering with the Institute for Justice in a lawsuit seeking a permanent injunction against Nazareth from enforcing the ordinance against for sale signs.
Institute for Justice Litigation Fellow Bobbi Taylor said the ordinance is a violation of the First Amendment.
“People have put for-sale signs in car windows for as long as cars have been around, and there is no legitimate reason for the government to ban doing so,” Taylor said. “Americans have a First Amendment right to truthfully advertise things they are selling, and that includes putting a for-sale sign in their car window.”
Nazareth banning for sale signs in a sad case of government overreach against Constitutionally protected speech.
Patriot Political will keep you up-to-date on any developments to this ongoing story.
