So, would they shut down Alex's lemonade stand? And what about all the people who have gotten sick eating at liscensed establishments? Asshats.

They talk about one lemonade stand where people got sick. What about the thousands upon thousands of kid-operated stands where there were no problems?

I see bureaucrats hassling a kid or doing something else stupid, I think, "They've got too little to do. This would be a good place to make budget cuts."

when i was a kid, we used to have to help out at the little league concession stand. Needless to say, we were not the jewels of cleaniness. Yet we sold thousands of hot dogs to help pay the cost of running the league, and I do not remember ever once being "inspected". Did people occasionally get sick and blame it on the dog? Yes, but it enabled many of the kids from poor families to particpate ( back then mainly white with a mexican barrio ). Many of those kids would have found idle time available for the dark side.

How would a temporary licence have prevent illness?

Better yet how does a child get such a licence given she is underage to sign an paperwork or enter into any binging agreements with the govenment?

There was a story out here in Phoenix a few days ago a local chain or resturants wanst storign or preparing their pico de gillo properly.

Theyve been in business for decades, and only had to pay a small fine even though dozens if not hunndereds of people got the bacterial equivilent of the 48 hr flu.

Maybe Oregon will come up with yet another law forcing kids' lemonade stands to have a sign warning that they are unlicensed, that their lemonade has not been certified by the health department as being safe to drink and that the buyer assumes all risk if they get sick.

Amy, you make an excellent point.

The government tends to think too little of the mass public and too much of the fat cats who manage to get into Congress.

You would have more chance of getting sick from your local burger joint then from a lemonade stand operated by a kid.

I love lemonade stands like this and always buy from them - even if they seem a bit pricey. I think it is a great lesson in capitalism and hard work. (I use to sell lemons from our tree out back at quite the markup - but never lemonade because it seemed to get too warm too fast).

Looks like these kids got their first of many lessons in Government BS. Next lesson, will be paying for all the adults these days who - instead of setting up lemonade stands - are choosing to rob them of their future livelihoods.

In all fairness, all the folks who paid for places in the local craft fair and were selling any type of food, even prepackaged, were required to buy the temporary food licenses and the other vendors were the ones who reported the stand. The mother was interviewed at length on the Pacific Northwest News channel (and there's a woman who, in my opinion, should not have been permitted to reproduce) and she said they just decided to go in and set up a stand. Didn't pay for a spot, unlike the other folks who did.

I have nothing against a lemonade stand in front of your house but the people who have stuff for sale at the craft fair have to pay the entry fee plus the temporary permit. The mother went on and on about how unhappy and traumatized her child was (yeah, she looked real unhappy smiling and goofing for the TV cameras) when in reality she could have let the child know that they made a mistake and next time they would play by the rules and get the permits and set up the stand that way. And like it or not, without the permit it's a liability issue for the folks who run the event.

I loved the part of the news story where the vendors and other customers surrounded the government agent. I enjoy the discomfort of those who abuse their authority with stupidity.

Sadly he did not get the shit kicked out of him and thrown into the street.

Nanc in Ashland - please tell me you understand that your position is one (I am assuming liberal, being from Ashland, OR?)that has placed us in the position of where we are now. It's your type of thinking, one that requires the need for mental gymnastics to defend a position for government intervention into the capitalist system that leaves me so concerned for this country.

Your post reeks of the liberal elitism that has infected our government and the democratic voter base - It's people like YOU that have given us these tyrannical obstacles in the first place.

One, these are children. Two, it's a fucking lemonade stand. SURELY, SURELY you are not suggesting they be required to purchase a permit - which will cost more than they would make in lemonade profits. SURELY, you see the ridiculousness of requiring children, not even of age to sign a contract - to purchase a permit to sell lemonade.

Absolutely ridiculous.

"In all fairness, all the folks who paid for places in the local craft fair and were selling any type of food, even prepackaged, were required to buy the temporary food licenses and the other vendors were the ones who reported the stand."

Fairness. Fairness, again. Life is not fair, and never will be. Government can't fix that - they can only create more problems - resulting in diminished freedoms for everyone else.

I HATE it when people talk about fairness like this.

I'm skeptical- a shrimp festival in Florida, and they're blaming poisoning on lemonade???? I'd like to see the evidence on how they traced it to the drink versus shellfish in the Florida sun.

Why should ANYBODY need to get a government license to sell food at a craft fair? Licensed restaurants give people food poisoning. Is there any evidence the piece of paper prevents bacterial contamination in food?

Amy, didn't you know that they print those things on special magical anti-bacterial paper? Seriously, your point is entirely valid, and the answer of course is that the "temporary restaurant license" has nothing whatsoever to do with public safety. It's a tax. Nothing more.

It's just as well. The IRS would have made her life hell if she'd managed to stay open for the whole hour.

The threat of Seven Year Old Lemonaid Poisoners is mentioned herein:
http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2010/08/wedgeapalooza.html

I know that for normal places that serve food, part of the license means that the place has been inspected for cleanliness and there have been recommendations to make sure the set-up is clean (sometimes unnecessary recommendations). I don't think this is needed for a kid's lemonade stand.

Well, I can see my opinion here is going to be wildly unpopular, but I own my own pair of asbestos underwear, so...

Either EVERYONE pays the fee to have a stand, or NO ONE does. Fuck fair, it's a rule or it isn't. Just because she's a CHILD doesn't make her immune to the rules, however arbitrary they are. What could have been a great teaching moment for mom (who could have avoided ALL OF THIS with about ten minutes of homework) turned into a "woe is me, she's just a chyyyylllddd!" attention grab.

And yeah, it's got nothing to do with "health issues" and is only a way to make money. But no one is MAKING her go there and put up a stand.

And Freebie: "Fairness. Fairness, again. Life is not fair, and never will be. Government can't fix that - they can only create more problems - resulting in diminished freedoms for everyone else."

That's right. I don't think it's fair if I have to pay for my license plates, so I'm going to go on the news and whine and cry about it so that someone will feel sorry for me and let me have my way. Oh, and I also don't think it's fair I have to pay property tax either, so - you guessed it - I'm going to go to the news and cry about how UNFAIR it is. You see where this is going?

Don't like the rules? WORK TO CHANGE THEM. Don't go on Action News at 7 and whine how it's UNFAIR and how TRAUMATIZED (the most overused word in the English language, IMHO) you are.

"Why should ANYBODY need to get a government license to sell food at a craft fair? "

'xactly!

"You see where this is going?"

Not really.

These are children, and they have a fucking lemonade stand. People who have been imprisoned by their absolute thinking (Either EVERYONE PAYS or NO ONE PAYS reasoning) is the precise reason why we have these retarded laws were imposed on us in the first place.

Personally, any kid who would show this much entrepreneurial spirit - I'd pay the permit for myself. But it isn't the point. No one should have to...and besides...

These are kids, ya know - they are KIDS and it's fucking lemonade.

This is like Balko's stories of the over-armed swat teams on small-town police forces. There are always people who get a little government power and decide to spend it making other people miserable. It's like they're trying to advertise how unfair life has been to THEM... No one in the world is worried about getting botulism from a little girl with a glass of lemonade, even if she has a head cold.

Next time a little girl tries to sell me IMAGINARY lemonade for a dollar because she can't get licensed for the real thing, I'm going to play along.

Ann: "Its a rule or it isn't"

SO...by that logic, children should not be allowed to sell anything, since it would violate child labor laws.

WOW...
-------------------

Children are supposed to learn things about free enterprise, earning money, and being responsible, when they're at such young ages. Teaching them about government regulations and whatnot is a little much to pile on there.

Fuck, when I was a kid I made invisible ink and sold it in little plastic bottles along with my cousin at a stand made out of a cardboard box at a playground in the neighborhood.

Should I have been required to get permission to erect a temporary structure on public property, get a business license, file a tax return, put warning labels on the bottles, and explain to an inspector why I don't have any minority employees to show my commitment to diversity...at the ripe old age of...7?
------------------

The "all or nothing, everyone or no one" mindset is the most blistering level of stupidity, and is why we are so overregulated today.

It is the same kind of logic that puts warning labels on a superman cape that it won't allow the wearer to fly, that specifies that hand rails MUST be a certain precise height on a wall...

I don't know about god, but if the devil does exist, he's writing your precious rule book that would make a 7 year old pay a hundred and some dollars to sell lemonade at a fair.

Did you hear about anyone bitching and complaining that the 7 year old was taking their business? HELL NO. Nanc, I don't know about the mother in question, whether she should reproduce or not. But she was trying to teach her child to be responsible, and the child comes out of this a helluva lot smarter than the government agent.

She was trying to sell lemonade at a spot where people will buy it. That sounds plenty smart to me. Your logic is the kind that destroys the initiative of that kind of smarts. Between your reasoning, and that government guy's, versus that little girl, we need her more than either of you.

Wow...I'm harsh tonight, well when people stop being angry at government intrusiveness and abuse, we've lost I suppose.

I'm not arguing the laws aren't stupid, what I'm saying is, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Just because it's a CHILD, does not make the rule less valid. I'll agree the rule is stupid. However, instead of being all "OMG MY CHYLLLD is being oppressed!" How about teaching the kid about rules and laws and how to change them? I think that would be a better use of mommy's time, instead of getting on the five o'clock news to cry about how her pweshious was "traumatized".

Rules is rules, people. Don't like 'em? CHANGE 'EM.'

I'll bet you fifty bucks if I, as an adult, go there next year and open an lemonade stand, I won't get a break. Because I'm not a cute little kid. That's bullshit.

This was not a child's lemonade stand; it was an adult's scheme to make a money hiding behing the child in order to bypass the ordinance.

This mother dragged her kid miles and miles away from home to crash another neighborhood's fair. Many neighborhoods have fairs during the summer and vendors who sell food are required to be licensed.

Neighborhood lemonade stands abound everywhere in Portland during the summer that are run by kids. The key word here is "neighborhood." No one is telling anyone they can't have lemonade stands in their own neighborhood; just not at a public event if they don't want to pay the fee.

These people made enough money to go to Disneyland and then some. TV news showed the kid holding a wad of money and smiling. The mother was behind her smiling too; probably at the idea of all the people she had suckered in.

So what lesson does this teach the little girl? It's okay to break an ordinance if you are young and cute? That the law is for some and not for others? If this is an unpopular ordinanice then it's up to the citizens of Portland to vote it down. It is not up to an idividual to pick and chose as to whether or not she wants to obey it.

I wonder now that if, in seeing the large amount of money this woman made from all her publicity others will do the same. Maybe I'll do that at the upcoming fair in my neighborhood next weekend.

Anyone know an adorable kid I can borrow?

Have any of those talking about "Fair is fair", and "The rules apply to everyone or to no one" considered the fact that these "temporary licenses" place an unreasonable burden on those who don't expect to come out with a whole lot of money in the first place, like a Lemonade stand?

I see the question posed by minerva: "So what lesson does this teach the little girl?" Well, to me is says, "If you can't make plenty of money, don't even try," because a child's lemonade stand is not likely to wind up netting enough to pay for the damn license anyway. It's the same thing that is going on in the larger economy right now, except on a smaller scale: Regulations, taxes, and fees are crushing the entrepreneurial spirit.

Like I said, three times now, I think, if you think the rule is stupid, WORK TO CHANGE IT.

The lesson that SHOULD be taught here is how we have the power to change things through legal means, not by going on the news to cry about how unfaaaair it is.

Poor little kid, my ass. She set up her stand again the next day in a tire store parking lot and an anarchist radio crew was crusading for her. She raised $2000.00 in dontations! Her mom has proudly been giving interviews and says her family is going to Disneyland with it. Yes, TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS. What a great reward for breaking the rules. What a great mom (not). She took this kid to that fair because it draws crowds of 15,000 people, and it does cost the city thousands a year to regulate. Every other vendor paid, there are porta-potties to cover and clean up expenses. The mom is a scammer. Let you kid have a stand in her OWN yard!

Well, I guess when it's time for that kid to go to college her mother will set up a lemonade stand in Disneyland to pay for it.

And the suckers will all come and buy.

"Just because it's a CHILD, does not make the rule less valid."

Yes it does. Children are NOT subject to the same rules as adults. You do not regulate children's lemonade stands. And when someone tries, you DISOBEY. The words "fuck them" cannot be uttered in enough languages to express that statement.

If you obey stupidity, you encourage stupidity. Just look at your own statement, work to change it...but until then, obey it. So by your reckoning must we obey any law, even if it violates common sense, even if it violates people's rights? When is it acceptable to disobey? Is it ever? I say it is...when laws are unjust, you violate them. When laws are stupid, you violate them. You do both peacefully, but you do so. If you bow to it, you are accepting it, and once you accept it, whatever your protests, you are actively ensuring its continued enforcement.

(By way of example, that guy caught in the "sting" giving free rides, a suitable response would have been a mass refusal to take taxis, and loads of people giving and accepting free rides...right to the place that law was passed to have it repealed, or force mass arrests and invalidate the law by default.)

The citizens in question at the site were not raging to get rid of this little girl and her stand, they were obviously appalled by the actions of the government agent, inspector, whatever he called himself. He had neither common sense nor common decency.

--------
I'm not fond of anarchists, but I'm less fond of petty dictators trying to shut down kids lemonade stands.

Frankly, I hope to see alot more disobedience to overregulation, overtaxation, and government intrusion, in the near future.

And I'M sick and tired of "parents" who think they're special because they've reproduced and therefore the rules don't apply to them.

Civil disobedience my ass. Entitled mommy is more like it. No one was being oppressed by this rule. Mommy took what SHOULD have been a teaching moment and turned it into a three ring circus with her child front and center. THAT'S the problem. The fact that she was rewarded for this bullshit just reinforces the stupid. I can't wait to see what happens the next time pweshious gets told NO.