I remember reading about a barter faire case in a federal law library. The Feds had a problem with pot smoking hippies and "facilitation" of untaxed and unregulated economic activity.

They described the coupon exchanges at the entrance to be a tax evasion scheme. It seems like the Feds were going after them on the tail end of the large scale Rave parties of the 1990s.

Okanogan is a pretty tight knit community when it comes to anybody they consider "outsiders". They also have some large, pervasive and very intact posse type groups who are very eager to play the junior Deputy role through the local Sheriffs office.

They tend to think highly of themselves and don't take kindly to being called the swarm robbers and robbery crime facilitators which they are.

In areas like that, tight knit informal networks will decide who gets what, who is allowed to earn anything, which families keep status and which are the sharecropper/serf class. Any business activity which upsets that delicate local balance will definitely upset them and they will make moves to criminalize and stop it. Once they establish federal connections, it's not about money, it's about the power to decide who gets money and who doesn't.