Ridiculous Travel Story
Mar 14th, 2005, 06:27 AM
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Nov 2004
Posts: 206
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Ridiculous Travel Story
This is ridiculous - Hillary Swank got caught bringing in fruit into New Zealand's airport. For that, she has to pay a $150 fine. Instead of paying it, she is contesting it!
Word of advice - bringing fruits and vegetables from other countries is always illegal. Don't let this happen to you!
Swank to Fight New Zealand Fruit Fine
Sun Mar 13,11:08 AM ET
WELLINGTON, New Zealand - Hilary Swank, the Oscar-winning star of "Million Dollar Baby," is going toe-to-toe with New Zealand legal authorities over a $150 fine customs officials slapped on her for bringing fruit into the country, local media reported Sunday.
Swank, who won a best-actress Academy Award for her role as a boxer in the acclaimed Clint Eastwood (news)-directed movie, was fined 200 New Zealand dollars (U.S. $150) on Jan. 15 for failing to declare an apple and an orange in her luggage when she arrived at Auckland International Airport, The Sunday Star-Times newspaper said in a front-page story.
She has instructed lawyers to appear in the northern city's Manukau District Court next week to contest the fine, the newspaper reported.
Thousands of visitors arriving in New Zealand each year are hit with on-the-spot fines for not declaring products like fruit which are subject to import bans. Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry spokesman William Minchin told the Star-Times that hundreds of people contest the fine.
Like neighboring Australia, New Zealand is largely free of pests which cause billions of dollars in damage to crops and livestock in other parts of the world. The country has extremely strict quarantine guidelines to keep such pests from entering the country.
"It's a pretty standard practice to issue an instant fine for a biosecurity risk," Minchin told the newspaper. "The only thing that's unusual in this case is that it's Hilary Swank and she's famous."
The newspaper quoted Swank's Los Angeles-based publicist, Troy Nankin, as saying, "Oh, that was the apple in the purse incident." Nankin reportedly declined further comment.
Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry officials were unavailable for comment Sunday.
Swank also won a best-actress Oscar for the 1999 movie "Boys Don't Cry."
Word of advice - bringing fruits and vegetables from other countries is always illegal. Don't let this happen to you!
Swank to Fight New Zealand Fruit Fine
Sun Mar 13,11:08 AM ET
WELLINGTON, New Zealand - Hilary Swank, the Oscar-winning star of "Million Dollar Baby," is going toe-to-toe with New Zealand legal authorities over a $150 fine customs officials slapped on her for bringing fruit into the country, local media reported Sunday.
Swank, who won a best-actress Academy Award for her role as a boxer in the acclaimed Clint Eastwood (news)-directed movie, was fined 200 New Zealand dollars (U.S. $150) on Jan. 15 for failing to declare an apple and an orange in her luggage when she arrived at Auckland International Airport, The Sunday Star-Times newspaper said in a front-page story.
She has instructed lawyers to appear in the northern city's Manukau District Court next week to contest the fine, the newspaper reported.
Thousands of visitors arriving in New Zealand each year are hit with on-the-spot fines for not declaring products like fruit which are subject to import bans. Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry spokesman William Minchin told the Star-Times that hundreds of people contest the fine.
Like neighboring Australia, New Zealand is largely free of pests which cause billions of dollars in damage to crops and livestock in other parts of the world. The country has extremely strict quarantine guidelines to keep such pests from entering the country.
"It's a pretty standard practice to issue an instant fine for a biosecurity risk," Minchin told the newspaper. "The only thing that's unusual in this case is that it's Hilary Swank and she's famous."
The newspaper quoted Swank's Los Angeles-based publicist, Troy Nankin, as saying, "Oh, that was the apple in the purse incident." Nankin reportedly declined further comment.
Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry officials were unavailable for comment Sunday.
Swank also won a best-actress Oscar for the 1999 movie "Boys Don't Cry."
Mar 14th, 2005, 07:58 AM
#3
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 20,921
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Both Australia and New Zealand are (understandably) ultra-cautious about foodborne pests. You can't take a lot of foods inter-state in Australia, and there are plenty of stories of people not allowed to leave their planes until they'd eaten up ALL their sandwiches (don't know if it made their hair curl). Time was, I believe, when you couldn't leave a plane in Australia until you'd been given a good going-over with the Flit gun too.
Mar 14th, 2005, 08:15 AM
#6
Join Date: Apr 2003
Posts: 17,268
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
It's not just food. Friend of mine recently had her walking boots confiscated at Oz Customs
It's just not possible to use them in Britain without getting them mud-caked. And Ozzies don't want no filthy foreign mud polluting their country. So the boots went into the Queen's Pipe.
It's just not possible to use them in Britain without getting them mud-caked. And Ozzies don't want no filthy foreign mud polluting their country. So the boots went into the Queen's Pipe.
Mar 14th, 2005, 10:30 AM
#7
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 512
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
FLanneruk just perhaps they were worried about "hoof in mouth" or what ever that disease is called. My husband is a dairy farmer and I know that it was of very real concern for those of us when we are traveling when you have livestock.
Sometimes if you have your own animals the farmers do not want you to enter their bars or chicken houses, etc.
Sometimes if you have your own animals the farmers do not want you to enter their bars or chicken houses, etc.
Mar 14th, 2005, 11:06 AM
#8
Join Date: Dec 2003
Posts: 776
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Don't know if this is arrogance or stupidity on Ms. Swank's part. But she obviously doesn't understand the possible serious consequences of what she did.
It wasn't only Australia taking the foot and mouth precautions. When the UK was having the foot and mouth disease problem in 2001, hiking boots were being inspected and disinfected upon entry into the US from anyone arriving from the UK. I had washed mine before I left the UK but they did get a very close look at my home airport.
It wasn't only Australia taking the foot and mouth precautions. When the UK was having the foot and mouth disease problem in 2001, hiking boots were being inspected and disinfected upon entry into the US from anyone arriving from the UK. I had washed mine before I left the UK but they did get a very close look at my home airport.
Mar 14th, 2005, 03:34 PM
#9
Join Date: Aug 2003
Posts: 9,922
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
On entering Australia your shoes will get a good disinfecting if you admit to having been tramping around in agricultural land - I haven't heard of confiscation, but maybe the mad cow disease scare put the system on full alert.
Foot and mouth disease is normally the biggest concern. Hillary Swank seems to suffer from the associated foot-in-mouth syndrome.
I'm disillusioned. It was only on Sunday night that I watched a TV interview with Ms Swank in which she was presented as the salt of the earth, a down-to-earth girl-next-door raised in a trailer park. She must need that $150.
Foot and mouth disease is normally the biggest concern. Hillary Swank seems to suffer from the associated foot-in-mouth syndrome.
I'm disillusioned. It was only on Sunday night that I watched a TV interview with Ms Swank in which she was presented as the salt of the earth, a down-to-earth girl-next-door raised in a trailer park. She must need that $150.
Mar 15th, 2005, 10:43 AM
#10
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 34,858
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
This is a ridiculous story because I don't understand under what grounds she thinks she can contest it. Whether you understand the purpose or even agree or not is moot, if that's the law, it's the law and you broke it. Maybe if she claims she wasn't adequately notified (the ignorance argument doesn't really work so well with a movie star who probably travels all the time, though). I know they tell you that on the forms you fill out for customs, at least in other countries.
I remember at the border of California or Arizona, they took one of my favorite plants I was traveling with and threw it in the trash for disposal right in front of me at the border. Now, I really was ignorant as I was moving to California and had a houseplant in my car -- they destroyed it, as you can't even take plants into Calif. by car across that border, even from another state (or maybe it was Arizona -- but somewhere SW). They didn't fine me, though.
I think this is kind of serious as one could try to hide fruits and things when arriving by air, since they are small and there are so many places you could put them--that shouldn't be perceived as easy or inconsequential, so she should be fined. I always liked her, also -- but you know, maybe the facts aren't quite that bad.
I remember at the border of California or Arizona, they took one of my favorite plants I was traveling with and threw it in the trash for disposal right in front of me at the border. Now, I really was ignorant as I was moving to California and had a houseplant in my car -- they destroyed it, as you can't even take plants into Calif. by car across that border, even from another state (or maybe it was Arizona -- but somewhere SW). They didn't fine me, though.
I think this is kind of serious as one could try to hide fruits and things when arriving by air, since they are small and there are so many places you could put them--that shouldn't be perceived as easy or inconsequential, so she should be fined. I always liked her, also -- but you know, maybe the facts aren't quite that bad.
