A $500 Fine for A Lemonade Stand?
July 1st, 2011
A lemonade stand is probably the most quintessentially American enterprise we have. I mean, who doesn’t love seeing children sitting at a stand they made out of a table and some plywood selling homemade lemonade to passersby on a hot summer day in the hopes of making a little money.
Well as it turns out, the head of Montgomery County, Maryland’s Department of Permitting Services doesn’t like it too much.
According to Reason.tv and The Washington Post, a group of kids selling lemonade at a roadside stand in Bethesda, Maryland to raise money for pediatric cancer research were given a $500 fine for running a stand without a vendor’s permit. According to Commissioner Jennifer Hughes, she was not trying to quash a private enterprise, but rather she was just “attempting to do what government is charged with doing, which is protecting communities and protecting the safety of people.” Exactly how is a lemonade stand a danger to the community or to people’s safety? Furthermore, how is a $500 fine for selling lemonade in any way justifiable?
After this story hit the Internet, there was so much backlash against Ms. Hughes’ actions that the fine was rescinded and the kids reopened their lemonade stand the next day. This unfortunately only serves to highlight the growing war between renegade salesmen and the government, between people who just want to make some money the good old American way: through hard work and a great product. Yet they keep being undermined by government officials who insist such stands are a threat to the community and a safety hazard. These rules are overbearing, and restrict free market enterprise from truly taking place.
And that’s even more sour than any lemonade a kid can sell.
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