Erring on the side of caution is still an error.

That's a thought I'm having this week as I consider a few things that have come up around town lately. Now that we're done with Town Meeting, and now that COVID-19 restrictions are ending, we're getting back to approving projects and permits, upgrading roads, launching or expanding businesses, and hiring School Superintendents.

The COVID re-opening often feels like trying to pull out into traffic when you've forgotten to take off the emergency brake. I'm fully vaccinated as of May 18--but a lot of people still are not. So I still "mask up" to leave home, but I pull the mask down, ready to pull back up at need. Last week at the transfer station, no one had a mask. At Hannaford, signs announced that vaccinated people didn't have to wear masks...but how would anyone know? Everyone in Hannaford was still wearing masks, and that made me feel weird, so I pulled my mask back up.

Town Hall will be re-opening to the public and is not requiring masks. The Beals Memorial Library will be re-opening to the public, and they are requiring masks. Whether I need a mask in any small business or office here in town is wholly up to the proprietors, but I am tending to stay masked unless it seems very clear that I don't have to be. I expect that will go on for a while. Even though I may be over-cautious to wear a mask, I still feel a moral and social pressure to keep the mask on out of respect for others.

I keep seeing articles in the media asking, "what [fun thing] will you do when you're fully vaccinated?" or "what will you do when COVID restrictions are lifted?" The answer for me is...nothing. Because almost all the things I would be doing had the pandemic never happened are still cancelled, postponed or all-virtual for the foreseeable future. My beloved science fiction conventions are happening online or not at all for most of 2021. Agricultural fairs are cancelled or scaling back. Many churches are still having only virtual services or none at all. Graduation ceremonies are happening online or with strictly limited attendance. Choruses, bands, orchestras, and theaters are slowly planning live rehearsals and performances with great trepidation and lots of precautions--while the Winchendon Music Festival is postponed to 2022. My getting two shots didn't change any of these things. It's great to have business meetings on Zoom, and skip the commute. Recreational events are another story. I am looking forward to Fall Fest! But I'll be wearing a mask at my booth at UUCW's Lawn Fair on June 19.

Last week, the Board of Selectmen had a conundrum to consider when Two Foxes Farm came before them for a mobile food vendor permit. Mr. Sheremet, who bakes pizza in a food truck and sells it at River Styx Brewing Company in Fitchburg, wants to expand his business to sell pizza at the farm and in other places. He described how he was getting individual permits from towns all around the area, along with his ServSafe® certification and many other credentials. What tripped up the Board of Selectmen were the zoning bylaws. Town Manager Justin Sultzbach is working to get things resolved.

Of course, we want to encourage local entrepreneurs, we want to support local farms and we want to see business expand in Winchendon. At the same time, the Board of Health regulates food vendors for good reasons. The Food and Drug Administration, and most laws and regulations concerning food, date to the early 20th Century. Before then, milk, meat, bread and produce were sold directly by small producers to consumers--and you ate them at your own risk. The regulations that small farmers now chafe under were put in place at a time when contaminated or adulterated food killed thousands of people and were implicated in outbreaks of diseases like scarlet fever and tuberculosis, food poisoning and plain old poisoning. Milk was frequently watered down and then thickened with chalk, or any chalk-like substances that did the job.

We don't have to worry about that nowadays. But now we have a situation in which small enterprises that would market cookies or home-made jellies or candy must meet the same onerous requirements for commercial kitchens that big restaurants and cafeterias do. I know churches who have been asked to rent their kitchen to small food producers, and fund-raising events that were shut down by the local Board of Health.

Enter a new bill currently before the Massachusetts legislature, H.465 (in the House) and S.533 (in the Senate): "An Act to promote economic opportunities for cottage food entrepreneurs." The bill defines "cottage food operation" as "a person who produces cottage food products only in the home kitchen of that person's domestic residence for retail sale directly to the consumer either in person, including but not limited to farmers markets, public events, and roadside stands, by telephone, internet or mail delivery." A "cottage food product" is "a non-time-temperature control for safety food including but not limited to baked goods, jams or jellies, and other non time/temperature control for food safety produced at a cottage food operation."

So, might not apply to pizza, or the homemade chili fundraiser a local church was told they couldn't do. But it would apply to the person who was told they couldn't sell homemade jelly at a local event a couple of years ago, or another desperately looking for a commercial kitchen to rent or borrow for a line of gourmet cookies.

Nowadays, we worry more about allergies, food intolerances and cross-contamination than scarlet fever or blatant adulteration. Still, even with labeling, records and registration, is this bill a good thing? Or might it be opening the door for problems? Will every cottage food producer be fully up to date on precautions and risks? Suppose a cottage food producer is privately skeptical of food allergies (the way anti-vaxxers are skeptical of vaccines) and figures what people don't know won't hurt them?

I am in favor of this bill, but I admit that it's not a simple issue.

Moving from food to roads...Mellen Road is still in limbo. One of the reasons for this is an excess of caution on the part of town counsel and the town administration, who imagine alarming scenarios in which the town will be tied up in court for years and years (life imitating Dickens' Bleak House in Toy Town) if it accepts Mellen Road as a town way by presciption (or fiat, or whatever).

But this is surely erring on the side of caution--because who could possibly be out there to contest the Town taking over Mellen Road? Who is going to suddenly appear waving ancient documents and saying, not so fast, WE want to spend thousands of dollars plowing and repairing this strip of land? Um...I don't think so. For one thing, as a publisher, I happen to know that when you know your rights are being infringed and you do nothing to defend them, you lose those rights. That's true for copyright (which is why the big guys like Disney or BMI will eviscerate tiny businesses for the tiniest infringement--they have to). That's true for trademarks. And it's true for roads.

Rest assured that nobody wants Mellen Road but the Town of Winchendon, and even if they did, the Town of Winchendon can tell them, "So where have you been since 1914? Too bad, you're out of luck"--and the law is on our side.

So, enough already. Let's accept Mellen Road, because it's like an orphaned baby left on our doorstep: we're the only ones who even slightly care.

Healthy caution is a good thing. But we've been smothered in an excess of caution for more than a year. Doing the right thing often means taking a calculated risk.

But it's still the only right thing to do.

Inanna Arthen