The Health Department of Madison County, Illinois on Sunday shut down a baking operation run by an 11-year-old girl.
Chloe Stirling may be young, but she's already developed serious culinary and small business skills. She began an enterprise, called “Hey, Cupcake!,” out of her family's kitchen two years ago. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the sixth grader earns around $200 a month selling her baked goods. Stirling hopes to use her income to one day open her own bakery. Her mother, Heather, also offered to match the money Stirling makes to buy a car when she turns 16. Additionally, “she has donated many to charitable events, including a fundraiser for a student with cancer and, most recently, taking some to residents at a senior care center,” writes the Belleville News-Democrat.
The desserts didn't sit well with the local government, though. The health department called Stirling's parents and demanded that the girl cease operations, because she was violating the Illinois State Food Service Code. Stirling lacked the necessary permit and the kitchen wasn't properly licensed.
"The guy told me I either had to buy her a bakery or put in a second kitchen (in the house),” Stirling's mother said.
How did the sleuths at the health department discover this renegade baker? She was on the front page of the local news. The News-Democrat wanted to highlight Stirling's entrepreneurship, so they wrote a feature about her.
Health Promotion Manager Amy Yeager told the Post-Dispatch, “The rules are the rules. It’s for the protection of the public health. The guidelines apply to everyone.” When asked whether it was worth the potential poor public relations, she said, “People will react how they choose to react. But it is our job.”
The sixth grade scofflaw doesn't blame the department for finally catching up with her code-violating behavior. She told KSDK, "Well, I think it's just the rules are rules and they kind of need to be followed. I really don't blame the health department because it's not really their fault.”
This isn't the first time law enforcement has tackled little criminals. Reason has coverednumerous regulation-dodging lemonade runners, one of which had cancer, and even azucchini black marketeer.
The Inexplicable War on Lemonade Stands
I’m beginning to think that there’s a nation-wide government conspiracy against either lemonade or children, because these lemonade stand shutdowns seem to be getting more and more common. If you set up a stand for your kids, just be prepared for a visit from the cops.
In Coralville, Iowa police shut down 4-year-old Abigail Krstinger’s lemonade stand after it had been up for half an hour. Dustin Krustinger told reporters that his daughter was selling lemonade at 25 cents a cup during the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Race Across Iowa (or RAGBRAI), and couldn’t have made more than five dollars, adding “If the line is drawn to the point where a four-year-old eight blocks away can’t sell a couple glasses of lemonade for 25 cents, than I think the line has been drawn at the wrong spot.”
Nearby, mother Bobbie Nelson had her kids’ lemonade stand shutdown as well. Police informed her that a permit would cost $400.
Meanwhile, in Georgia, police shutdown a lemonade stand run by three girls who were saving money to go to a water park. Police said the girls needed a business license, a peddler’s permit, and a food permit to operate the stand, which cost $50 per day or $180 per year each, sums that would quickly cut into any possible profit-margin.
In Appleton, Wisconsin the city council recently passed an ordinance preventing vendors from selling products within two blocks of local events – including kids who want to sell lemonade or cookies.
These are hardly isolated incidents. From slapping parents with $500 fines for letting their kids run unlicensed lemonade stands (though this was later waived after public outcry), to government officialscalling the cops on kids selling cupcakes, the list goes on and on and on.
Nor does it stop with kids. Food Trucks are also under the gun of regulators and city governmentsacross the country. This isn’t to say that food trucks don’t need any regulations at all, but many of the regulations that come down the pipeline are pushed by brick-and-mortar competitors who want to keep competition at a minimum.
But it’s the shutdown of lemonade stands that I find so inexplicable. Who stands to lose from a couple of six-year-olds selling lemonade? Who stands to gain from shutting them down? Do local governments really think parents are going to pay for $400 vendor permits, or that kids can scrape together the money for food permits? Are there any actual safety risks? Kids have been selling lemonade for decades without permits of any sort. They often set the stands up just for fun, but many lemonade stands (or bake sales) are used to raise money for schools, cancer, or sick pets. Lemonade stands represent the most innocent, optimistic side of capitalism out there.
Fortunately, August 20th is now unofficially National Lemonade Freedom Day, because when life gives you overbearing government regulations…make lemonade, or something.
A map of lemonade stand crackdowns can be found here. They’re spread out pretty much all across the country.
No comments:
Post a Comment