Two days after Christmas, on December 27th, ProAdvocate finally sent us a response letter to forward to the Warren County Health District.
That began four long months of certified letters going back and forth. What started with the health department quickly escalated to the prosecuting attorney's office.
At the same time, we received an official adjudication order declaring our on-farm kitchen illegal. We had never sent the city a response they considered legally sound, so they moved forward and shut it down. We had seen the warning signs coming, though, and had already shifted our kitchen work to a licensed shared-use facility a few towns away. That move came with its own headaches, but it saved us.
We ended up having a sitdown meeting with our town, many lawyers, the zoning department employees, our business manager…I bet 3k in legal fees was burned in that meeting (mainly on the city side).
It was fascinating (and frustrating) in that I had to argue (and actually, the zoning department had to back me up), on just where they could or couldn’t inspect or ask for compliance due to our agricultural status. By that point, it was obvious the PMA wasn't protecting us at all in this regard.
We made it through our busiest time of year, strawberry season, without any new drama. No letters arrived. No inspectors showed up (or so we thought). Things felt “almost” normal.
On June 5th, a Thursday, we had received the Warren County Foundation's Emerging Small Business Award. It was a big deal for us: a formal gala, professional photos, even a proclamation from the statehouse.
Then Monday, June 9th, rolled around. I was driving when my phone rang. It was the lawyer who had been helping with the city kitchen issues. He sounded serious. "Michael, the Warren County Prosecutor's Office just called me. They intend to file for a Temporary Restraining Order to shut your operation down. I don't handle cases like this, so you're on your own. Good luck."
To lawyer up, or not?
We called ProAdvocate right away and asked if we should hire a lawyer. Their answer was the most vague, noncommittal response imaginable.
On one hand, they told us, getting lawyers involved frequently costs a lot of money and doesn't really help. But on the other hand, this is what signs off all their emails:
The information contained in this email and the supporting attachments provided by ProAdvocate Group PMA are for educational purposes only. Although we have performed extensive research regarding legal principles, our trustees, officers and supporting staff of ProAdvocate Group PMA are not licensed members of the State Bar of Texas. Information provided by members of ProAdvocate Group PMA should not be considered a substitute for the advice of a licensed attorney in handling your legal affairs.
In phone calls, one person said lawyers just mess things up. The other one said lawyers can be helpful…
We had trusted ProAdvocate completely up to that moment, and now we were staring at a TRO and an afternoon in front of a magistrate.
The sting operation
We brought in a local attorney. Suddenly we had conflicting sets of advice. Getting him caught up on the peculiarities of PMAs was incredibly frustrating, and the packet ProAdvocate sent to help brief him was thin at best.
The prosecutor filed the paperwork on June 11th, and we finally saw their evidence.
The judge refused to issue an immediate TRO without a hearing first, which bought us a few days to prepare.
What we discovered was that investigators had conducted a sting operation. They signed up as PMA members, which is required to shop with us, then came in and bought products while documenting everything.
Let me be clear: nobody had gotten sick. There were zero complaints about illness. The entire case grew out of a simple question about whether we needed licenses to sell food to our own community who knew when purchasing items that we were not inspected by the health department.
The hearing took place in a small, closed courtroom. Only the health department representatives, the magistrate, our attorney, and my family were allowed inside. No public, no supporters. It lasted hours.
They walked through photograph after photograph of our products. They argued these items could potentially cause illness, even though none ever had. They claimed we were selling cut greens, which was flat-out false.
They conveniently left out the fact that all our bakery items came from a licensed, inspected (by them) kitchen. When pressed on the stand, they had to admit it.
In the end, the judge granted the TRO. We were completely shut down. We could not sell anything to our community, even items clearly outside their jurisdiction.
Our community showed up
The real blessing out of all of this was that it really showed us how much we mean to our community. Our customers went to amazing lengths to get involved and stand up for us.
After the TRO, we knew we had thousands of dollars worth of perishable food that would spoil, and we had no idea how long the shutdown would last. So the next morning, Wednesday, we opened the farm and invited people to come take whatever they needed for free.
(Think about that for a a second. The food was supposedly too dangerous to sell, but perfectly safe to give away.)
Within an hour, cars lined up out of the parking lot and down the road. Traffic actually closed the street in front of the farm. You can watch a timelapse video here…it was a crazy day.
The Ohio Press Network published an excellent series on the case and the enormous public backlash that followed. It's worth reading if you want the full details: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
We also set up a website (accessible here) to detail our response to this crisis and update our customers each day.
By Wednesday afternoon, the outcry from the community was so loud that the prosecutor contacted the judge (and our council) and admitted the TRO had been overly broad. We were allowed to reopen immediately, provided we sold only products grown on our own farm.
But, what really was the ‘right’ way forward?
At that point we sought as much outside counsel as we could find.
ProAdvocate pushed one strategy. Our lawyer recommended another. Friends and supporters connected us with others.
Maurice Thompson from the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law was especially helpful. He explained Ohio law in detail and pointed us to the Manna Storehouse case from 2008. That private food co-op had been raided, and the 1851 Center defended them all the way to the Ohio Supreme Court. The court ultimately declined to hear it or ruled in a way that offered no real protection for PMA-style operations. Interestingly, ProAdvocate had never mentioned this case when they assured us PMAs were unbreakable.
Maurice's conclusion was straightforward: under current Ohio law, there simply wasn't a strong path forward. Smaller, low-profile operations sometimes "win" because regulators decide it's not worth the effort to litigate fully. And for some reason, the ODA, has declined to prosecute at the state level. Our farm, however, was highly visible. We had just won a major local award and enjoyed tremendous community support. That visibility made us a target. We later learned there had been pressure from state-level officials to make an example of us.
Much of the problem came down to the specific model we wanted. We needed to bring in products from neighboring farms, process our own crops on-site, and sell everything from one location. That kind of operation doesn't fit neatly into a herd-share agreement or other established exemptions.
On a Sunday call with John Moody, longtime food freedom attorney Pete Kennedy, and another farmer running an alternative setup, we heard the full spectrum of opinions. Some urged outright defiance, even if it meant jail time. Others agreed with Maurice that victory was unlikely. A key point that John made was, “we can’t ultimately make the decision for you, this is your journey, and your family.”
We also received input connected to Robert Barnes, the attorney representing Amos Miller in Pennsylvania. Miller's long-running raw milk and PMA case continues to this day. He has won some partial victories, such as permission to sell certain items out-of-state while appeals proceed, but he still faces major restrictions inside Pennsylvania without proper permits.
We could not live with constant threats, inspectors yelling at us in our own parking lot, team members too scared to come to work, and repeated court appearances.
We needed clear, immediate answers instead of endless delays.
We needed proven legal strategies, not boasts about never losing in court.
We needed someone who could point us to actual success stories, not say “well, we have clients all over the world.”
We needed someone who cared more about keeping our business alive than about protecting their own feelings.
After everything, we had completely lost confidence in ProAdvocate’s ability to help us navigate a way forward.
In the current environment, the only reliable path meant ending our PMA and operating as a public business in compliance with all Ohio regulations.
The settlement
On Tuesday, June 26th, just hours before we were due back in court for what likely would have become a permanent injunction ( based on what several interested, off record parties had told us), we signed a settlement agreement.
Until we finished the required upgrades, we could sell only our own produce plus a small amount of shelf-stable items. No meat, no dairy, no eggs, nothing temperature-sensitive.
The only real thing we had to do to comply with their level one food establishment regulations (one that only sells prepackaged foods) was paint the inside of our cooler with $250/gallon paint. It was stressful. We literally were figuring the hours we needed to get the cooler down to temp after we had painted it so the health inspector could wave their little probe and see it was below 41 degrees.
We did ask our lawyer to be there for that first inspection. And you could tell that it made the inspectors significantly more nervous.
The supervisor actually said, and I quote: "We know it's impossible to comply with every detail of the law. We just try to get people as close as we can." I couldn't resist: "Can we get that in writing?"
By mid-afternoon on July 9th, we reopened with almost everything available again (except slushies) and were fully legal in the eyes of the state.
But it didn’t feel resolved
In September, we sent ProAdvocate a formal letter explaining our deep disappointment and detailing the ways we felt misled about PMAs in Ohio. We wanted them to respond, in writing, to many of the issues we raised above.
They confirmed receipt on October 8th, noting the envelope had been date-stamped September 18th, and promised a timely reply.
On October 20th they emailed: "We have been working on the response to address all of your concerns contained in your letter. Our response will be in writing."
As of today, December 24th, 2025, we have received nothing more from them.
Part 4 comes out Friday…subscribe below to be notified.
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