A thriving front-yard vegetable garden would...

Good luck. Your friend's garden sounds mouth-watering! Nothing compares to just-picked sugar snap peas.

The title or deed - whatever its called in NC - will list all covenants and restrictions on the property.  If it says no veggies then he will have to destroy his garden.  The "architectural and landscaping standards" don't mean doo-doo unless the legal documents tie the property to those standards.  Another way to get around them is to read everything associated with the covenants and restrictions and see if the HOA¹ has been conforming to the legal requirements.  

In my experience the local judges and lawyers are financially tied to the local real estate agents.  Stan can try and sue but he'll lose unless his connections are better than the HOA and local real estate people.

¹ HOA = Home Owners Association.  In every case I know the committee members are bottom feeders.


A doo run-run-run, a doo run-run

Actually the real answer to the problem is grow what you can grow.  Brassics love shady areas and they are some of the best veggies one can grow for food value.  


A doo run-run-run, a doo run-run

The first thing your friend needs to do is file an appeal, or if there is no appeals process, file something in small claims court, anything to get a legal stay imposed so he doesn't have to tear up his food in the middle of the growing season.  He can find ways to delay at least until harvest.  He can use a technicality if neccessary -- he didn't get the original letter, for one thing.  In most districts, if they don't send the notification by registered mail, it won't hold up in court anyway.

Second, he can nitpick them to death. If the regulations say no veggies and no herbs, he doesn't have to tear up his tomatoes because they're technically a berry and therefore a fruit.  Containered plants can probably be considered separate from "the garden" and could also stay.  If the regulations say "no food" or are more broadly worded so as to really imply no edible items can be grown, he needs to case the council members' houses and find out if any of them are growing rosemary hedges, or nasturtiums or other edible flowers.

Third, he probably has grounds to challenge the regulations on their face.  Assuming this is Raleigh, NC, he needs to call up the law schools at Duke and UNC Chapel Hill and see if they have students around in law clinics over the summer who could advise him for free.   I think the best bet is probably the Environmental Law and Policy clinic at Duke, but there's also the Community Enterprise clinic there.  UNC has a Civil Legal Assitance Clinic too.  Unfortunately, most of the clinics run only during the academic year, and I'm not sure whether they take direct clients without referrals anyway, but they might have some kind of staff around to answer questions during the summer.  Can't hurt to talk to them, anyway.

More resources:  
North Carolina Justice Center
Legal Aid of North Carolina
LawHelp.org/NC

Just a couple of ideas to start off with.  There are probably more avenues to pursue, including simple public opinion -- appealing to his neighbors.  If the garden's pretty and useful, and he gets compliments on it, the odds are that somebody complained because of his bumper stickers (to state the obvious), but other neighbors could well be outraged if they found out he was being forced to tear it up.  He could put a small sign in the garden saying that the neighborhood assiociation is trying to force him to dig it up, and asking for support.  Maybe post a petition and/or the phone number and address of the responsible parties.  Again, it isn't likely to hurt, and could help a lot.

my suggestion: tell your friend to do a photo-essay on it and try and get some publicity on it, hell, diary it on kos, what would happen if those morons got 100,000 emails and phone calls, might they start to see how deep in the sand their heads are?

copy to grist, michael moore, and al (is it a bird, is it a plane?) gore...

make some waves, ruffle some feathers, make a big poster saying if you paved over your yard, it's all good, but growing food....should be a capital offence! call the radio station...

how dare he undermine the supermarkets' stranglehold on public food supply? what about the poor mexican aliens who will lose their illegal, repug-fattening work if people start to grow their own food?

osama's behind it....

good thing you can't make bombs from organic fertiliser.

this is right up there with 'no windmills on my skyline' and 'no panels on your roof' levels of vanity and delusion.

we're going down, but hell, we look great!

hey, maybe al gore's tv channel will come and do a reportage.

if your friend wasn't a supernice guy, he might even start countersuing saying rosemary plants bring down the neighbourhood, and he'll only rip up his veggies if the others comply-

dumb rules for one, dumb rules for all-

it's the dumbfuck nation way, how would homer handle it?

i'm surprised he got away with it the first year..

land of the free...did he make sure to only use monsanto-copyrighted seed?

well, there you go.

maybe spraying it all with plastic and calling it an art object will be a last resort.

The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it. Chinese Proverb.

i'd totally grow chickens in my side yard if the neighborhood association didn't ban 'em.