Health inspectors close down 7-year olds' lemonade stand

Portlands health inspectors don't have anything better to do than to harrass a 7-year-old into closing her lemonade stand becuse she lacked a $120 licensing fee. What's going to happen now? You won't be able to serve company tea or punch in your house?

Portland lemonade stand runs into health inspectors, needs $120 license to operate

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.

What about social gatherings? I know that these events aren't there to make money but the food being served, on the most part, are prepared at home.

How does this inspector feel about bake sales?

Well there is good news to come out of this. Apology after girl's lemonade stand shut down

This little girl is going to grow up hating bureaucrats, which might be a good thing.

[edit on 6/8/10 by Intelearthling]

Incredible. Just incredible. Nice to see the the Napoleonic tradition is alive and well with entry level bureaucratic types. If I were this girls parent I would call Gloria Allred and SUE! May not win but I bet there's a reality show contract in it somewhere.

What a sweet little girl. I'll buy her lemonade. We should all buy some and have her ship it to us.

Wow what was going through the health inspectors heads? The worst part is that they'll likely need to amend a law because apparently some people can't be trusted with common sense.

The city has relented. It's jus another example of how insane we have become. Cops kill with impunity and arrest people on bogus charges and are defended. 5 year olds are busted for sexual harassment. Let's face it the world has gone insane.

Yeah. This is too sad to be funny. I am even ready for tax authorities reading this and then reviewing this girl taxes ,according to law....
It is easier to hide behind regulations and laws instead of being a person and making pretty simple decisions. She is a child. Licenses and all the other magnificent examples of boring adult life should not apply to children directly. There is even regulation for that
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If you sell unpasteurized milk in the US you will get swat teamed....
At least they didn't swat team the young lady...
But that is one less job in the economy and that really is a shame.
Maybe she should get a job on a swat team.
That sector is hiring.

[edit on 6-8-2010 by Danbones]

The worst of this story is that it wasn't even lemonade. Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not american, but isn't the american traditional lemonade stand running child supposed to be selling lemonade made from, you know, lemons? She was selling glasses of kool-aid sachets made up with bottle water.

I thought the whole notion was that the child was being rewarded for their hard work both in learning how to make lemonade, and in the making of it. Not handed money for ripping a sachet of chemicals open and pouring in bottled water!

I think she got off lightly, as did this forum.

One person reacts to her Kool Aid concoctions with anaphylactic shock and all of a sudden these forums are aswarm with 'Secret School System Teaches Children to Murder' threads or some other variant thereof.

At least this thread doesn't involve the Feds like that other thread.

She was at a big public event, not on her front lawn, and taking money for consumable goods. Should we just get 7 year olds to peddle burritos out the back of greasy Mexican vans now and allow it because 'awww, they're qwute' or do you enjoy the standards set out to protect you from disease?

Personally I would have had her removed from her parents care, given over to social services and charged the parents with enslavement, underage exploitation, tax evasion, various health risk charges and fraud for the lack of actual lemonade.

But she's blonde, 7 and from a middle class background - so it's all American Okay.

-m0r

Well,
Since she wasn't using REAL lemons, and selling it at a public gathering let's throw the book at her.

Do they even make common sense any more in America ..... or on this site?

Maybe it has to be licensed from the mental Health department or something....

Is that 120$ common sense license an annual thing? It could get expensive if we want to keep from overreacting to things around here....or in Portland...apparently.

I saw this on the news and they said she was saving money to go to Disney. That inspector moron should buy her way for making her close her stand, ruining her Disney dream and making that little girl CRY!

My sister and I along with our friends use to have lemonade stands all the time! We would even sell cookies my mom made. Nobody every bothered us, the cops even bought cookies!