Consider this Exhibit A of government run amok.
The Oregonian: It's hardly unusual to hear small-business owners gripe about licensing requirements or complain that heavy-handed regulations are driving them into the red.
So when Multnomah County shut down an enterprise last week for operating without a license, you might just sigh and say, there they go again.
Except this entrepreneur was a 7-year-old named Julie Murphy. Her business was a lemonade stand at the Last Thursday monthly art fair in Northeast Portland. The government regulation she violated? Failing to get a $120 temporary restaurant license.
Turns out that kids' lemonade stands -- those constants of summertime -- are supposed to get a permit in Oregon, particularly at big events that happen to be patrolled regularly by county health inspectors. [MORE]
This is a perfect example of where common sense has left the building. Because we have become a society that wants to live a risk free and irresponsible life, we elect government to watch out for us at every turn. The trade off is freedom is eroded and commonsense takes a backseat.
Did any of these inspectors ever stop to think that children’s lemonade stands have been around forever and millions of people have not keeled over and died because of them? If past generations have successfully survived the hidden threat of “food-borne illness” from lemonade stands, then I think this generation can pull through just fine. We don’t need government to protect us from every tiny possible danger.
Just this past weekend while vacationing at a friend’s lake house, I stopped by a neighborhood garage sale. Sure enough there was a little girl selling lemonade. I bought a cup. It was the nastiest thing I ever tasted (Hey little girl, where da sugar at?). Needless to say I did not finish the cup (or let the little girl know that I hated her lemonade).
The whole point in buying the cup was to help this little girl make some money and experience the rudiments of entrepreneurship. Only the biggest idiot on the planet would expect restaurant level hygiene from a kid working a sidewalk lemonade stand. Commonsense people, we got to use some commonsense.
Via: Memeorandum
Via: The Oregonian
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8 comments:
The government is to protect us from kids with a pitcher of ice water and lemonade cool-aide. ooooh, I feel so much safer now. Man, seems the inspectors been drinking too much of another kind of Kool Aide.
What's more outrageous is... Americans no longer outraged. This saddens me more then I can put into words.
Soon, we will all live in EPA-friendly padded foam cubes to live out our natural 150 years of living with assisted, EPA-FDA-regulated feed-robots because stepping out of the house would violate 2,392 kinds of regulations.
We need to be outrage, or is it too late.
2nd Anonymous
Too add more insult to injury, though they say it was for food safety reasons, in the end, all they wanted was the $120. Now they no longer take just the candy from a baby, but her milk money for the year as well.
Unbelievable...big brother is getting bigger.
One editorial comment--found a couple of typos: twice you have "pass" instead of "past"
What a sweetie pie. At least we know she will grow up to be a Republican.
I live just outside of Portland. This is one more reason why I refuse to live within Portland's city limits. Portland is quite the liberal city, so much that it is one of only two cities where Progressive radio is having success. This young lady was fortunate not to be caught doing cart-wheels while at her stand. The city might had charged her with a caberet license as well.
Anonymous is right; the fact that no outrage is shown to such little Napoleons is why they get by with it.
50 cents sounds cheap to me
maybe she violated some long-standing minimum pricing law still on the books-
as for the lemonade with no sugar- that's how I like mine.... I think she was just looking out for your well being by offering a healthy alternative to sugar-laden soft drinks. Government should be all for that. Ma'am, here's your 1099.
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