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August 06, 2010
A lemon of a decision
Kids, Big Dog And A Lemonade Stand, originally uploaded by DerekFleener.
I never quite understand people sometimes. Namely, every now and then, you will read about a health inspector/police officer/city official who shuts down an enterprise that a kid is running. For example, this health inspector ran off some kids who had set up a lemonade stand. Amazingly, the government officials actually apologized:
Julie Murphy came up with the idea of starting a lemonade stand after seeing one on a cartoon, according to her mother.
"Julie has been bothering me about doing a lemonade stand all summer," said Maria Fife, Julie's mother.
Like any young entrepreneur, Murphy broke out the pens, pencils and markers to create a sign for her stand.
She and her mother set up the stand on the corner of Northeast Alberta and 26th Avenue near the Last Thursday Street Festival. It wasn't long before business -- at 50 cents per cup -- started to pick up.
Soon after, however, a health inspector showed up at the stand and told Julie and her mother they were violating the law.
"They said to pack up and go home because they were going to fine us," Fife said.
On Thursday, Multnomah County Chair Jeff Cogen called Fife to apologize to her daughter. He said the health inspectors were simply doing what they were told to do.
I always wonder if stuff like this happened 30 years ago. Did health inspectors tell kids their lemonade storage and refrigeration methods were unsanitary? Did licensing agents inform them they needed a $500 permit? My suspicion is that this sort of joke always happened to an extent, but now that we have the internet, everyone knows about it. To me, the sorriest types of these stories are the ones where an adult turns in the kids.
Nevertheless, I can understand, at least, the motivation of some health inspectors. Suppose some guy buys some lemonade, then gets violently ill, or swallows an Ebola-infected cockroach. (It's possible!) You know if that happens, someone is getting sued, and little Suzy probably does not have liability insurance on that lemonade stand. It's a fine line, really.
entry no. 1497
Posted at August 6, 2010 10:29 AM