Apparently you cant have a lemonade stand even if your a kid with out the G getting its share …
So to help out the kids country time lemonade is creating a legal defense fund for any kid cited for having one
Of course some would think serving country time its self is a crime but I digress ……
Further proof (as if any was needed) that government is nothing but a protection racket.
Keep in mind this information came from a Libertarian rant site, which is only reporting one incident in the last three years of the police closing a kid’s lemonade stand. And that was because a local business (that sold lemonade) called the police and filed a complaint.
The issue struck me as something Country Time made up for advertising purposes.
It’s definitely not a made up issue, as a simple google search for lemonade stand fined or lemonade stand shut down will reveal.
But it’s not a big enough issue to warrant this response. The response is just a PR stunt by Country Time to sell more lemonade.
(humor intended) Now I wanna se Chevy pay for NO LICENCE tickets for corvette drivers.:rolleyes:
Ya know, buy our product, don’t get proper paperwork, we’ll cover it.
On a serious note, Do kids get fines? Or do the fines go to parents that tell the cops to go eat a donut, after they’ve been told 10 times “stop selling now and we’ll call it settled”.
That’s some sharp analysis there!
Of course it’s a fucking publicity stunt, and quite a sharp one. But at the same time, it highlights an issue where government oversight often leads to ridiculous outcomes. It is ridiculous to require licenses and permits for kid’s lemonade stand, and it’s even more ridiculous when those permits are hundreds of dollars, and the fine for not having one can get into the thousands, as is sometimes the case.
I’m a lefty, and I firmly believe that there are plenty of areas where government regulation, at one level or another, is necessary to protect public health and safety, or to ensure more equitable outcomes. But I also think it would be better if our first question, when thinking about regulation, were “Should we do this?” rather than “Can we do this?” Too many times, it seems that government regulators slap on more and more regs and permit requirements and barriers just because they can, with basically no reasonable underlying cause.
But this case shows precisely what’s wrong with some regulatory barriers: they are often mobilized in the name of naked economic protectionism rather than out of any real public need. The same thing happens with food trucks in cities all over the country. The biggest interest group behind draconian food truck regulations are brick-and-mortar restaurants who hate competition. I understand that it can hurt when someone else comes in and grabs some of your customers, but I’m not sure that the government should be in the business of playing favorites in the war over lunch.
Lemonade? How can they call this shit “lemonade”?
“Often”? Cite, please?
But not regulating food trucks would also be playing favorites. Brick and mortar restaurants are regulated. It seems fair to me to also require regulation of food trucks.
Life is busy. I drink my lemonade on City time.
Depends on the purpose and extent of the regulation.
In some cases, regulation is used somewhat to create barriers to entry - not for its ostensible purpose of protecting consumer health and safety.
This article, for example, is from the Canadian Competition Bureau (a government body and so presumably not an advocate for the food truck industry), pointing out the problematic nature of regulations in this area:
This addresses the problem of “excessive regulation” as a barrier to competition in detail.
The Bureau states:
From the US side:
Regulatory excess stifling desirable activities is a common concern - something regulators have to worry about: see the above-quoted link to the Canadian Competition Bureau, in the context of food trucks.
As in all things, finding a balance is the hard part (enough regulation to protect say health and safety - but not so much as to stifle innovation or competition).
Sure. But there are a few issues at play here.
Regulating food trucks for things like proper hygiene and sanitation is perfectly reasonable. That’s an area of government oversight that is clearly in the public interest.
But in plenty of cities, food truck regulations are clearly for the sole and specific purpose of protecting restaurants from competition, or simply from some general aesthetic or cultural feeling that food trucks are less desirable than other types of eating establishments. Some regulations include literal proximity rules, prohibiting food trucks from operating within X feet of an established restaurant. Washington DC had a rule whereby a mobile food truck was only allowed to stop and sell food when a line of people was already in place waiting for it. Not sure if that rule is still in place, or if it’s been repealed.
Some cities, like Los Angeles, have begun to relax their draconian food truck and mobile vendor rules, and for the most part this is working out fine. People have more choices, and a bunch of small businesses, many of them operated by immigrants and ethnic minorities, can make a living without fear of massive fines. Some of the food truck and street cart food in LA is fantastic.
As I said, I’m not an anti-regulation zealot, and nor am I, in a more general political sense, a libertarian. But an area where libertarians make sense is in their criticism of some of the nonsense regulations imposed by government, regulations that often do little except drive up costs, drive down choices, and protect entrenched interest groups.
Another good example is African hair braiding, which, in about a dozen states, requires a license to practice as a cosmetologist or hairstylist. These licenses generally require hundreds or thousands of hours of training, costing up to $20,000. African hair braiders are required to pay for and go through this training, despite the fact that the hairstyling and cosmetology schools don’t actually teach anything about the African hair braiding, and despite the fact that hair braiders have no interest in offering the specific hair-care or makeup services offered by regular hair stylists and cosmetologists.
Edit: I see that **Malthus **got in ahead of me, and I see that his food truck citation includes reference to Chicago. It’s a great example of a city with draconian and largely protectionist food truck regulation.
Excessive is a matter of opinion.
Personally, I like food trucks, but if a city were to say “No Food Trucks Here,” which would be the ultimate in ‘excessive regulation,’ I’d be okay with that too.
Bottom line is, food trucks need to be regulated, and not just for food safety. Number of food trucks needs to be regulated too.
I also have no problem regulating lemonade stands, so maybe I’m a wee bit evil. It would be educational!
Hmmm… we always welcomed, or at least never minded, the roach coach that would stop outside our barracks around dinner time.
There are 2 kinds of trucks here. There are the roach coach sort that sell pre-prepared food and keeps it warm or cold for the customer. And then there are the rolling kitchens that prepare the food on site. Certainly the Health dept should regulate these, and for the roach coaches, the kitchens where the food is prepared and stored.
Oh, don’t forget the Good Humor or Mr. Softee trucks.
And traffic hazards are bad. And kids running across the street without looking to get a drumstick is bad. So I can understand some sort of regulation about that. And maybe some training for drivers. Make them watch a video and maybe take a brief written test.
I’m not so sure about the competition with brick and mortar places. If you have a hankering for a hot dog with everything from a hot dog cart Micky Dees just isn’t going to do it for you anyway. As for the number of food trucks allowed, wouldn’t the market sort of take care of that?
I absolutely agree with such regulations.
Restaurants are notoriously difficult businesses, and the success of a restaurant is rare. How would you feel if you signed a lease and went though all the expense to open a restaurant and then a month later a food truck plopped down in front of your storefront? Or worse, since food trucks are mobile, a fleet of unregulated food trucks descends upon you to drive you out of business?
Doesn’t that seem unfair? Perhaps maybe, someone should keep an eye on where and when food trucks operate?
Food trucks have their own built-in advantages that make them dangerous to restaurants, and terms like “competition” lose meaning when one has to pay rent and the other doesn’t. I feel that part of allowing food trucks to exist in a city at all, is recognizing that a true “even playing field” would be to require all food establishments to be restaurants. Instead, there is a regulatory compromise that allows food trucks to exist. In a sense, food trucks are already cutting regulatory corners by not being restaurants.
There’s some city planning aspects to it as well. If you want a nice vibrant neighborhood with a couple of restaurants, having a bunch of food trucks come in and siphon off their lunch money could end up closing the restaurants and now there’s nothing there for the evening crowd.
Okay, let’s do that.
A simple google search for “lemonade stand fined” revealed that there apparently have been four incidents of children’s lemonade stands being “fined” in America in the last twenty years. One in 2018, one in 2015, one in 2010, and one in 1998. (The actual fine was being told they needed to have a business permit.)
I’m not seeing a national crisis here. To me, this is pretty close to a made-up issue.