Woman faces charges for sitting at a picnic table

Next time you think about sitting at a picnic table, minding your business, enjoying the view of a lake while getting a little work done, you might want to check to make sure that the lake is public property. Or else you might end up in jail.

KMBC has the strange story of Jennifer Payne, who visited Weatherby Lake (north of the metro) on Monday between meetings in the Kansas City area. She sat down at a picnic table to write some thank-you cards. As she was leaving, the TV station reports, a police officer busted her for trespassing. The lake is private property, and although the roads around the lake and some of the land are public, the table that Payne was sitting on was privately owned. So, any decent human being would just chalk it up to an out-of-towner not knowing the rules, right? Nope. The officer arrested her, and the lake board decided to press charges.