Stop me if you’ve heard this one before
Inspectors shut down a girl’s lemonade stand.
9 Responses to “Stop me if you’ve heard this one before”
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August 9th, 2010 at 10:36 am
County got smart and fixed it.
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2010/08/lemonade_stands_get_reprieve_m.html
August 9th, 2010 at 11:07 am
Ordinarily, I would say “shame on those inspectors”, but you know what? I say: good.
Kudos to the inspectors. They made her cry and taught her a lesson that is sure to stick. If you want to do something worth doing in this country, you are going have to fight the government for it every single day. They are going to tax and regulate you until it just isn’t worth it anymore.
Hopefully this girl has learned her lesson early. If so, she will claim her entitlement, get on the dole, and sit on the couch watching reality television like the rest of us. Perhaps she will become a high-level leeching bureaucrat in the IRS when she grows up. I sure hope so.
Another reason I thank the inspectors: this symbolizes yet another advancement in the war on children. We abort them, mortgage their future, and indoctrinate them with misinformation, but it’s about time we started humiliating and demoralizing them directly.
Children are the future, and we are kicking the future’s butt.
August 9th, 2010 at 11:15 am
I read that story.
It depends on the community and the way they set up their government. Where I am, and I’ve been there with a cocktail, not lemonade, in my hand, “Officer Friendly” takes the opportunity to talk to the kids and their parents about policing. He has an Explorer Scout along. He shows them his Taser and baton, handcuffs some volunteers, let’s them know he’s on their side. Definitely does not shut down the lemonade stand.
But that’s the kind of thing that flows up from the people to the government. That’s the kind of thing we want, and that’s the kind of thing we have.
August 9th, 2010 at 12:57 pm
You know, that kid wasn’t exactly selling lemonade on her neighborhood street corner. She was selling lemonade at a huge state fair.
August 9th, 2010 at 1:32 pm
You know, when this made the net, suddenly this grave risk to public health that can be controlled for only a $120 license fee suddenly wasn’t such a risk. So are people gonna die or did the state just forgo their tribute to quell a bit of bad PR?
August 10th, 2010 at 4:24 am
If I understand this correctly, county health inspectors were checking food / beverage vendors at the fair for $120 permits. This vendor was using safe practices (gloves, bottled water, seemingly sanitary practices) but had no $120 permit. This vendor was shut down due to regulations (no $120 permit) citing safety concerns. How does a permit (whatever the cost) guarantee sanitary food handling practices? Shouldn’t inspectors be concerned with public health rather than if a permit was purchased or not? Maybe they should have a permit inspector looking out for that nonsense and keep the health inspectors looking at how consumables are prepared. I guess it’s much easier to scare the community with health hazards than to just tell them you are imposing vendor fees to raise revenue.
August 10th, 2010 at 10:47 pm
OK, I live in that county. It wasn’t a “state fair”. It was a large block party, maybe even a street fair, runs for a week, in good weather will attract 15,000 TOTAL guests. No “table fees”, which is why the family set up the lemonade stand there.
Because of the “lack of usual organization”, better known as the lack of interference from a city-sponsored neighborhood organization, the county’s inspectors were out in force.
Un-reported on: a local tire dealer chain, Les Schwab Tires, “sponsored” the lemonade stand on one of their lots the next day, and the kid made $1,500! Inspectors couldn’t touch her because the stand was then on private property.
The County didn’t back down immediately. Jeff Cogen, the County Executive, initially backed his inspectors, but when the switchboard just stayed lit for the next day, he decided he was losing too many votes, so he then apologized. He never did order the inspectors to leave lemonade stands alone, as the press widely reported, he just told them they “should use some discretion”. Since that discretion is nowhere to be found in their rule books, they aren’t obliged to follow it.
BTW, the largest local righty talk radio guy, Lars Larson, was all over this one, and is probably responsible for most of the phone calls to Cogen’s office being made.
August 11th, 2010 at 3:13 am
nk, I think we have a bad “community” where I have to live. It’s a tourist-and-retirement hellhole in Southern Florida. About 10 years ago, a little girl was busted for a lemonade stand about a block away from where I then lived. We have some very bad Zoning Nazis here, not to mention some rather thuggish pigs who accosted me one night when I was walking home from church for no reason I could discern except that I was being particularly careful to obey the laws.
Alfred Hitchcock famously said, ” I don’t hate the police, but I am afraid of them.” Unlike him, I both fear and hate them, un-American as they are.
August 11th, 2010 at 12:26 pm
I’d ask you to come up to where I am, but there’s no right to carry outside your home, land or fixed place of business. Still, we smile and say “Good Morning” to total strangers as we walk down the street and our neighbors know where our house key is.