City Tickets 10-Year-Old For Having a Lemonade Stand

City Tickets 10-Year-Old For Having a Lemonade Stand

gothamist.com

As if Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe hasn't been given enough agita by the New York Post this summer as they breathe down his neck over delinquent lifeguards, now he has to answer why his officers are giving out $200 tickets to a 10-year-old girl selling lemonade at Riverside Park. 10-year-old Clementine Lee and her dad Richard set up a stand selling lemonade for fifty cents a cup yesterday afternoon when they had their run in with Parks officials. Richard Lee describes, "They approached us nonchalantly but then surrounded us. They were very hostile as soon as they approached, saying 'Whe

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Gimme a break! You know things are getting bad when... Is it even legal to issue a ticket to a ten year old? Maybe the official thought he was doing New York City a favor by getting the money for a permit? Was he going to inform the State Sales Tax Board next? At least the Parks Commissioner waved off the ticket and said the Parks Official needed to be retrained. He even offered to buy a cup of her fifty cent Lemonade the next time he passed by. Why are "Officials" so dumb sometimes? Are they even allowed to hand out tickets, like Police?

gothamist.com
(visit the link for the full news article)


[edit on 17-8-2009 by Oatmeal]

Reminds me of: Help! Mom! There are Liberals Under my Bed

The kid goes to have his little lemonade stand and Ted Kennedy pulls up in his limo, asks for a cut in the form of a "tax" and the story goes from there.

Funny and disgusting.

reply to post by thisguyrighthere


Ted Kennedy would have asked to be comped...or asked her if she had health care.

[edit on 17-8-2009 by Oatmeal]

reply to post by thisguyrighthere

Funny and disgusting.

Here is a link to something I found Hilarious...

Source

[edit on 17-8-2009 by Oatmeal]

reply to post by Oatmeal


I've been calling them whores for a while now, because all they care about it money money money.

I don't believe that half of the regulations laws like seatbelt laws and helmet laws are truly to keep us safe, but to take our money when we don't behave like a trained elephant should respond.

Same thing goes for the red light robots, they don't care about accidents just the revenue collecting capability of the system. They already wrote about moving one of them to a better location.....[ better as in money maker ]

We have money whores in charge of us, no wonder things are so screwed up!

I wonder who pimped to the cops about the kids?!?!

reply to post by Oatmeal


Ted woud've asked if there was any bourbon in it first.

The parks commissioner has admitted the policemen were wrong and that he'd buy lemonade from the girl the next time he saw the stand.


I do understand the need for permits to sell food and drinks and I do understand the cops were doing what they thought was the right thing. This isn't rural kentucky where everyone knows everyone, this is NYC. There are issues that a big city is more wary of and the big city police force is, probably, a bit more cautious than smaller forces.

More important, did you notice the image that accompanied the article, and the tag line beneath it? A bit much for a news site, no?

reply to post by Crakeur

Ted woud've asked if there was any bourbon in it first.

Ted would have had the Bourbon in the back seat and asked her to mix him a Whiskey Cocktail...

More important, did you notice the image that accompanied the article, and the tag line beneath it? A bit much for a news site, no?

That's the "2 Girls, 1 Cup" Tag Line?

Oh, they were not Policemen issuing the citation, they were "Park Officials" That is why I question whether they have the authority to hand out citations at all, let alone a ten year old girl.


[edit on 17-8-2009 by Oatmeal]

Originally posted by Oatmeal
Oh, they were not Policemen issuing the citation, they were "Park Officials" That is why I question whether they have the authority to hand out citations at all, let alone a ten year old girl.

If they had the pad to give out the citation, they must be authorized to do so. The park officials handle, among other things, central park, which is a rather large park with all kinds of activity inside. There's a small amusement park for kids, a carousel, a puppet theater, a place for concerts, a zoo, tons of street performers, tons of merchants selling ices, ice cream, drawings, jewelry and other such stuff so, yeah, they are always making sure these folks have the proper licenses.

There was a story, recently, about this shoe repairman who was in his 80's or 90's and who always had a line waiting for his services. Anyway, he was always stationed in Union Square Park and, due to a recent crackdown in the traffic there, his license was revoked so he was forced to move and the folks who visited this guy were all up in arms about it.


The licenses are done for a reason. The silly citation over a lemonade stand is really more of an issue of the girl, and her father, not realizing that you cannot simply "set up shop" on a corner, like you can in smallville USA.

Again, silly and pointless but the Park Officials were merely doing what they thought they were supposed to do.

The proper way to handle this would have been for them to simply approach the father and tell him that licenses are required to sell things on the street. No need for the citation.

This morning, on the news, they were talking about the story and the girl said she'd be back to selling the lemonade - not sure if she said today or next weekend.

reply to post by Crakeur

If they had the pad to give out the citation, they must be authorized to do so. The park officials handle, among other things, central park, which is a rather large park with all kinds of activity inside. There's a small amusement park for kids, a carousel, a puppet theater, a place for concerts, a zoo, tons of street performers, tons of merchants selling ices, ice cream, drawings, jewelry and other such stuff so, yeah, they are always making sure these folks have the proper licenses.

Can they issue tickets to ten year olds?

Well, You sound like your probably from New York, so you would know...would you like ice with that Senator?

[edit on 17-8-2009 by Oatmeal]

reply to post by Oatmeal


Sad that a child needs official permits to sell lemonade.
the world is really spiraling downwards

reply to post by Oatmeal


I'm not sure what the rules are regarding citations and age limits but I doubt there are age limits and the girl's father was with her so he would, presumably, be the responsible party there, no?

Senator Crakeur? I like that.

No more road work during heavily trafficked hours, no more jury duty for the folks who work. Free beer on Sundays.

Got your vote?

First off this little girl screwed up. You have to have to have to have money set aside for a police kickback in New York City when operating any kind of off the books business.

Plus it's obvious she has union problems! I bet no one working at her stand is a union member.

I bet she hasn't paid workman's comp or payroll taxes either.

Sure little girls seem cute and all when they start muscling into the lemonade market but clearly little miss Gotti has big plans to try to run the 2.95 a cup ligitimate lemonade vendors out of the market.

These little gangsters will use tears and demands for puppies when they pretend to be injured and then turn around and sell the puppy to medical research just to make a couple more bucks!

It's little girls like this that screw up the economy and the lemonade business for the rest of us.

I say hanging is too good for her!

reply to post by Crakeur

Got your vote?

I vote twice...

reply to post by Crakeur

The licenses are done for a reason. The silly citation over a lemonade stand is really more of an issue of the girl, and her father, not realizing that you cannot simply "set up shop" on a corner, like you can in smallville USA.

I understand where you are coming from with this, and I will agree a more humble approach would be better, but I am concerned about something bigger.

As this story illustrates, today's society requires a license for any type of business, including a lemonade stand. Today's society requires automobile insurance to drive a car. Today's society requires requires housing to conform to public health standards and undergo periodic inspections. Today's society requires one to pay for garbage collection, wear a helmet to ride a bicycle, and maintain the grass at an acceptable level.

All of these are considered good things, and for a good reason. Abuse can affect the public health and safety of others. But let's take a gander back in time a generation or so:

When I came 'of age', a young man could buy a clunker car for a song, spend some elbow grease to get the thing up and running, go get a job for a small business like a service station or work for farmers hauling hay or picking cotton, get their own little ramshackle place to stay while they made some money, and then slowly, as they could afford it, improve their lot in life. A close friend of mine initially lived in a hovel of a shack that looked like someone's storage shed until he could do better. His 'furniture' was stuff that we picked up off the side of the road and cleaned up to use. He even had a cable spool for a table. His first job didn't withhold taxes; he was a part-time cook at a barbecue place before there was a Health Department to inspect them. That little restaurant became well known around here for the quality barbecue he made.

Today he lives in a nice home, drives a motorcycle, owns a Chevy Silverado he uses for his side business, works at a job he has held for over 20 years, and does home repair and renovation on the side.

When I moved out, I had an advantage: I knew a contractor who helped me build a tiny little bachelor pad since we had plenty of land. My mother helped pay for the materials, and I did as much of the labor as possible. But the car I drove was a beat-up, rusted, coughing, spluttering 1967 Volkswagen Beetle. I worked on that car about every weekend to make sure it would keep running to get me to work. And when it didn't, I rode my thumb or walked.

I even set up a small business out of my home: I drew house plans. No business license, no sales tax, no hassles of any kind. I could do that because I was not operating a large company; I barely made enough to supplement my meager income at the time. Later on, I owned a full-fledged C-corp specializing in architectural and structural design, and for that I did indeed have a license and pay taxes.

The point is, both my friend and I have been successful, in no small part due to the fact that we were able to make do in our early adult years with substandard living conditions. Without that, we would not have been able to make the decisions we made, nor would we have been able to save our money to better ourselves. In order to have upward mobility in our society, individuals must be capable of making sacrifices and personal choices. Today, we have laws designed specifically to limit those sacrifices and choices. What effect will this have on our next generation? My daughter has taken my advice and is going to continue living here indefinitely, due to this one change in society, until she can afford to build a new home. That could be a while; she is just starting out and has a lot of college study ahead of her.

We are changing the way society operates into a one-size-fits-all life-plan that is strangling our creativity and imagination. This little girl learned a valuable lesson. Not that she can be enterprising and industrious and make her own way in life, but that she must pay for every thing she tries to do, and usually more than she has available.

Progress? You decide.

TheRedneck

Edit to add:

No more road work during heavily trafficked hours, no more jury duty for the folks who work. Free beer on Sundays.

Crak, you've got my vote and the votes of every graveyard I can dig up!

TheRedneck


[edit on 8/17/2009 by TheRedneck]

New York city officials fresh off the boat from Somalia and earning $25,000 a year make a poor decision.

I'm truly shocked.

You'll be telling me they don't have college degrees next.

Wow times have changed! I use to have these weekly with my sister and local cops would BUY lemonade or kool-aid from us not ticket us! This is just nuts!

You have got to wonder if there will ever be a point where people just say "NO" to the seemingly endless new laws, rules and restsrictions being place on us by those who govern.
I mean, there has to be a limit. I personally feel we passed that limit a long time ago, but it seems there is no end to it.
I would like to see a trend start where governments everywhere appoint a commission or something to sit down and revue all the laws and regulations, decide what makes sense and throw the rest out.
If we don't we are going to end up in a society so stifling of ingenuity that we will be coddled from cradle to grave and never know what it is to live.

reply to post by wayno


The problem is wayno a lot of people seem to want and favor these laws.

Look at some of the posts to this thread. Grown men afraid to drink lemonade from a little girl's stand. "There could be anything in that lemonade, it could be an Al Queda front to poison the lemonade drinkers of New York City!"

There is a rampant environment of fear thanks to the "War on Terror" where the government tries it's best to make sure you are afraid of everything under the sun up to and including little girls and lemonade.

Then there is this pervasive atmosphere of jealousy and resentment. Everyone thinks that everyone else is somehow getting over at their own expense thanks to divide and conquer politics and media manipulation.

It's insane natural home made food without preservatives or chemicals has to be sold with WARNINGS on the label, junk full of 52 FDA Chemicals is sold as "Safe".

Safe is boring, safe is for loosers, nothing ventured, nothing gained...

Give me a double shot of that lemonade little girl and while you are at it, get me your mom's phone number!

Peace and Trust has for the time being lost to fear and hate and war.

It's not a very good world to be a little girl anymore. Or a grownup either.

reply to post by wayno

I would like to see a trend start where governments everywhere appoint a commission or something to sit down and revue all the laws and regulations, decide what makes sense and throw the rest out.

Oh No! Not another Government Commission! How about a Czar of Common Sense? This is Government your dealing with, they only know how to spend our money. The Government is what needs to be thrown out!