Stockbridge Florist and Gifts owner Mark Meeks has won a court battle to keep his store. With no help from the State Legislature, a judge ruled that the city cannot take their property. The judge mentioned that the plan the City of Stockbridge, Georgia has in mind is not related to public use.

Georgia Governor Sonny Purdue has signed a bill into law, that will make it harder for such abuses in the future. So the City of Stockbridge will have a much harder time if they try and take Mr. Meeks’ property again. Mrs. Meeks mentioned that construction equipment came so close to their property, that some fragile items had fallen from their walls.

While the new legislation protects from future abuses, a grandfather clause was removed from the bill that would have offered protection to the Meeks even if they lost their court case. So while people are happy the bill is finally law, there is some anger that protection for the Meeks was taken out. Since the issues the Meeks endured helped push the legislation in the first place. The Henry County NAACP, that stood with the Meeks expressed disappointment that the Meeks were not protected by a grandfather clause.

You can watch a video report here from Atlanta’s CBS 46 news.

The Democrats are right. Perdue and the Republicans did do a total about-face on this issue and did previously try to make it easier for developers to work with government to take property. Although to my knowledge, the Democrats never showed that they ever proposed anything to better protect private property.

So in total everything ends well on this issue in Georgia and the folks who don’t like Purdue or Republicans (Democrats and NAACP) found something to toss mud about.

Related posts:

• Despite a Plea From the Mayor. Stockbridge, Georgia Insists on Abusing Eminent Domain.
• When government feels your business is not successful enough!