Why We Need Government: To Prevent 9-Year-Olds From Running Free Little Lending Libraries

Advances in providing for the education and enlightenment of the
general public, from the city of Leawood, Kansas,
as reported by KMBC TV:

Leawood city leaders have told Spencer Collins that he has to
stop sharing books with his neighbors.

Collins had to take down his little free library, essentially a
communal bookshelf, on Wednesday. The motto of the sharing center
had been “take a book, leave a book,” but Collins learned there’s a
lot less give and take in city government….

“When we got home from vacation, there was a letter from the
city of Leawood saying that it was in code violation and it needed
to be down by the 19th or we would receive a citation,” said
Spencer’s mother, Sarah Collins. 

Leawood said the little house is an accessory structure. The
city bans buildings that aren’t attached to someone’s home.

The hand of government is wise, and sympathetic, but it
must be firm:

“We empathize with them, but we still have to follow the rules,”
said Richard Coleman of the City of Leawood. “We need to treat
everybody the same. So we can’t say if somebody files a complaint
but we like the little libraries — we think they’re cute — so we
ignore it. We can’t do that.”

Because Leawood is a community that cares about
culture, but also about safety: “Leawood said it has received
two complaints about Spencer Collins’ library.”

Meanwhile, the utopian anarchists in neighboring community
Prairie Valley “told KMBC 9’s Haley Harrison that the city
simply doesn’t enforce codes that would restrict little free
libraries.”