The notion of a private club of raw-foods consumers outside the purview of health and agriculture officials’ clutches doesn’t cut it with law enforcement officials.

In following up on my previous post, I spoke with an assistant state’s attorney for the McHenry County State’s Attorney’s Office, who acts as the legal representatives of the McHenry County Health Department, which originally came after Nature’s Juice Co-Op.

On the immediate issue of the investigation of Nature’s Juice Co-Op, the attorney, Tom Carroll, says the county has handed the investigation over to state and federal officials. The reason isn’t that there is no case, but that the co-op “appears to distribute outside the county…We can only regulate the sale of products in the county…For now, there is no court case or citations or complaints.”

But as far as the legalities go, “The fact that it is a private club doesn’t mean that there isn’t some government investigation…Costco is a private club, but the government still determines that their meat is inspected…Country clubs are private clubs. But because they sell food, the health department will make sure their kitchen is clean, that they are maintaining health standards.”

For the record, the search in September of the home of Renee Bentall and John Ainlay of Nature’s Juice didn’t show any violations, he said. Future searches and investigation will be taken up by state and federal authorities.

Carroll sounded relieved to have wiped his hands clean of the affair. He said his office has received a number of faxes and calls from members of the Nature’s Juice Co-Op. “I just got off the phone with a member who was quite agitated.”

Is Costco or a country club the same as a herdshare or highly focused food co-op? I can think of a number of immediate differences. The latter are less commercial, have much smaller memberships, and are limited to foods that are difficult or impossible to obtain commercially.

I’d like to think that the problem in this particular situation is one of education—that the local health and agriculture officials don’t appreciate the distinctions, and the difficulties growing numbers of people face obtaining certain nutrient-rich foods. Yet I know that, even when the issues are hashed out in infinite detail, as they have been before New York’s Department of Agriculture and Markets, the authorities remain vehemently opposed to herdshare arrangements. At best, they may be on the fence, as in Ohio and Michigan, but even in these places, the situations remain murky. Regulators have been taught to give “protection” complete priority over the sanctity of private contracts and transactions. Besides, these officials don’t give up any of their turf very easily.