As @eric_poulsen said, this happens all the time, and it’s for reasons of fairness.
If I, as a 25 year old male who probably isn’t cute and definitely isn’t charming, set up, let’s say a frozen banana shack on the side of the road, and I didn’t bother getting a food handling permit, or a building inspection, and the cops didn’t hassle me… Why should the city not keep track of the health code compliance of “legitimate businesses” either.
It’s a fairness thing. In order to handle food and sell it to the public, you gotta comply with training for safely handling food. And it’s gotta apply equally. Food handling permits aren’t hard to get. It’s like a 4 hour class, and $15 for the card.
The story sounds bad, but it happens all the time, and it’s really so that the state can be fair and ensure public safety in the more prevalent and high-traffic establishments. Otherwise they’d be playing favorites.
The law is stupid, and I don’t see why we should respect stupidity just because it claims to be impartial.
The cop’s behavior is obviously not about making sure everyone plays by the same rules. The rules are so extensive that almost everyone is breaking some law - they just don’t get punished. This state of universal criminality allows the police to exercise arbitrary discretion as to who gets punished. There is nothing equal about that.
Well, they could have done it Chicago style, and handed each cop a cup of lemonade with a twenty wrapped around it. Cheaper than the permit process, and teaches a useful lesson into the bargain.
I sure wish I could see the fat boy in the picture do a tuck and role routine like the pool cop did. A video of that would make those girls way ,ore money than a francize of lemonade stands!
Little kids don’t really sell lemonade. They’re selling cuteness.
My daughters and their friends do this every year, it’s a great experience.
They should just put up a sign, free lemonade - by donation or a tip jar.
Haven’t the cops anything better to do? Do you really want to be ridiculed in your community?
I buy lemonade from kids to be supportive of their work ethic, to be a member of the community, to be a nice person, to pay forward for those people who stopped at my lemonade stand when I was a kid. I don’t buy because I enjoy kool-aid.
If you were running a banana stand in my neighborhood I would have a completely different set of expectations of the product and the food handling procedures. And, it has nothing to do with who is cute or charming, children just get different treatment from me. Sorry not sorry about that.
And it is the same sort of busybody mentality that keeps some kid from mowing lawns for pizza money, because he lacks a landscaper’s license. The only lesson these kids are going to learn is that the government exists primarily to interfere with people’s lives, and that the police are only here to give you a hard time. I think we should be asking whether such enforcement makes the world a better place, or if this is a symptom of something rotten in our society.
I seem to recall a popular song on this very subject. Here’s one of the few bits I remember well…
Fucking with me 'cause I'm a first-grader,
with a little bit of cash from lemonade-uh,
searchin' my stand, looking for the crystals,
thinkin', "Little girls, they won't be packin' pistols."
But I can’t seem to find it on google, anyone help?
