Butcher has to retire after thirty years of sausage making; local residents are fed up

A butcher in Joure will soon no longer be allowed to smoke sausage in his shop. Local residents are tired of the stench and the municipality has decided to enforce it. The butcher does not have a license for the smoking cabinet he uses.

Obe Veldman has smoked dry sausage for almost thirty years. He did this for eighteen years in Balk and for ten years in his shop on the Midstraat in Joure. There were never any complaints or problems until he moved into another building in the same street three years ago. Local residents have since complained about the smoke and associated stench.

Veldman understands little of the complaints. He believes that local residents should realize that they live in a shopping street. “Then you have to accept that there are sounds and skies, for example,” he tells Omrop Fryslân. In addition, the situation has already been improved by a quieter smoking installation and a higher exhaust pipe, says the butcher.

The neighbors do not want to say much about the disagreement to the broadcaster, but emphasize that they have no problems with the butcher himself.

No license

The butcher does not have a permit for a smoking cabinet, says the municipality of De Friese Meeren. So smoking is illegal. After August 26, the smoke box must be gone and the municipality will enforce it.

Veldman points out that he has been working in this way for almost thirty years. The municipality does not consider that an argument. “If you have been driving without a driver’s license for five years and then you are arrested, you cannot say that they should have done so sooner,” alderman Irona Groeneveld responds.

The municipal council has imposed a penalty of 1750 euros on Veldman for every time he smokes sausage in his butcher’s shop after that day. The fine can be up to 17,500 euros.

–