August 3, 2011 3:57 P.M. By Iain Murray
In the past couple of months, police have put children’s lemonade stands out of business in Texas, Georgia, Wisconsin, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. (There’s a great map, with links to the news stories, here.)
The kids have been taught a lesson, but it’s one we should learn, too: You can’t be an entrepreneur in modern-day America without bureaucrats giving you permission in the first place.
The costs of regulation today amount to $10,000 per employee per year for small businesses in the U.S. That’s why the advert where a little girl borrows her father’s phone to help run her lemonade stand and ends up running a multinational just can’t happen. The bureaucrats just wouldn’t let her do it without jumping through the costly bureaucratic hoops first.
That’s why businesses aren’t hiring. That’s why unemployment is still at 10 percent (except around the bureaucrats’ nirvana of Washington, D.C., where it’s 4 percent). That’s why the president’s revenues have dried up.
If we want to get America back to work, we need to lighten up on the lemonade stands, lighten up on small businesses, and stop the bureaucrats destroying free enterprise.
Here's the list:
August 1, 2011 – Police officers in Coralville, Iowa, ordered at least three different sets of children to quit selling lemonade during the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa unless they first got a vendor’s permit and a health inspection. This is the first known example of a coordinated set of shutdowns at a single time.
July 19, 2011 – McAllen, Texas shuts down girls’ lemonade stand for failure to obtain food permit, may assess grandmother $50 fine.
July 17, 2011 – Police in Appleton, Wisconsin inform children that despite legally selling lemonade and cookies in their front yard during an annual city festival for the past six or seven years, a new city ordinance bans these sales in order to protect licensed vendors from competition.
July 15, 2011 – Cops in Midway, Georgia shut down a lemonade stand some kids were running in their own front yard, saying the kids had to obtain a peddler’s license, a food license, and pay $50 per day for a temporary business permit.
June 16, 2011 – County Inspector in Maryland closes kids’ lemonade stand, fines parents $500.
June 10, 2011 – Philadelphia Department of Health shuts down cancer charity’s lemonade stand for lack of permit, hand-washing station.
March 7, 2011 – Hazelwood, Missouri, demands an end to Girl Scouts’ driveway cookie stand.
February 26, 2011 – Georgia police demand closure of Girl Scout cookie stand until girls obtain a peddler’s permit.
February 26, 2011 – In a separate incident, Savannah, Georgia, determines that city ordinances require an end to 40 year tradition of Girl Scouts selling cookies outside the historic home of the organization’s founder.
November 15, 2010 – Politician in New York sics police on 13-year-olds for selling cupcakes.
October 23, 2010 – Idaho Tax Commission official demands closure of children’s roadside pumpkin stand.
August 6, 2010 – Oregon health inspector orders lemonade stand closed unless 7-year-old girl obtains $120 license.
August 8, 2009 – California code enforcement officer shuts down 8-year-old girl’s lemonade stand for lack of city license.
July 19, 2009 – Police officers in Pennsylvania shut down neighborhood lemonade stand.
August 28, 2008 – Neighborhood produce stand operated by 11-year-old and 4-year-old ordered closed in Clayton, California.
August 19, 2008 – New York City Police close lemonade stand operated by 9- and 10-year old, demanding they first obtain permits – which the children subsequently requested and were denied.
July 19, 2008 – The Mayor of Claremont, California, ordered the closure of a Girl Scout Cookie stand. Afterward, the City Council proposed that all “solicitors” in the city – specifically including Girl Scouts – must have a permit before going door-to-door. After an initial furor, the ordinance passed.
September 25, 2005 – City officials in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, threaten to shut down lemonade stand operated by Brownie troop raising funds to benefit victims of Hurricane Katrina.
August 3, 2005 – 11- and 9-year-old selling lemonade on Salem Common in Massachusetts are ordered to shut down after nearby sausage vendor complains to police that they were negatively affecting his business.
January 6, 2005 – 10-year-old in Miami Beach, Florida, told the city would not issue her a permit to sell lemonade to raise funds for disaster relief.
August 14, 2004 – St. Louis city health commissioner demands shut down of 10- and 12-year-olds’ lemonade stand for lack of proper licenses and “unsafe ice cubes.”
July 13, 2004 – Despite having a permit from one city department in Las Cruces, New Mexico, three sisters were forced to close their front-yard drink stand.
August 27, 2003 – St. Paul, Minnesota’s Office of Licenses, Inspections and Environmental Protection shut down a seven-year-old’s drink stand because she had not obtained a $60 license.
June 13, 2003 – Law enforcement officials in Naples, Florida, shut down stand selling lemonade and cookies without city license.
August 7, 2001 – County zoning officers in Rio Nido, California, demand closure of children’s snack stand.
July 23, 1990 – 13-year-old drink vendor shut down by city officials in Ojai, California, for lack of city permits. When he finally got all the necessary licenses, he was able to put what he learned into practice – by calling city officials to shut down other kids who were selling lemonade without a license.
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