City shuts down preschool's farm stand

[babylonsister]

So sucks. Solely because they need rules, and they must be followed? How about all these benefits to everyone involved?

City shuts down preschool's farm stand
'It’s more than just selling 50 cent peppers. It’s connecting families and kids and food and the environment.'
Mary Jo DiLonardo
September 18, 2019, 8:26 a.m.


At Little Ones Learning Center in Forest Park, Georgia, outside of Atlanta, the young students do typical preschool things. They work on spelling and draw interesting creations, but they also get to play and learn in an amazing garden.

The garden originally started as an outdoor learning environment for kids who needed to get out in nature for a little bit.

"It was a place for children who were having hard days," Little Ones Executive Director Wande Okunoren-Meadows tells MNN. "I know I go stir crazy if I'm sitting indoors for a long period of time. 'You're having a hard time inside? Let's go outside, play in the dirt and find some worms.'"

Eventually parents got involved and the garden truly bloomed. Now kids grow squash, beans, radishes, bell peppers, watermelons and all sorts of greens, while also learning how to compost. Then on the first and third Wednesday of the month, they set up a produce stand where they sell their homegrown fruits and vegetables to parents and people in the community. Farmers from the West Georgia Co-Op also bring produce to help supplement what's offered at the small stand.

snip//

But in early August, the city shut down the farm stand, saying the residential area wasn't zoned for selling produce.

"Anywhere you live, you’ve got to have rules and regulations," Forest Park City Manager Angela Redding told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "Otherwise, you would just have whatever."

School administrators were surprised when they were asked to close up shop.

"It's like shutting down a kid's lemonade stand," Okunoren-Meadows says. "Nobody does this. It just shouldn't happen."

more...

https://www.mnn.com/food/healthy-eating/stories/city-shuts-down-preschools-farm-stand?fbclid=IwAR1viVo7X8yxlLIrRyNUOb6OOg8UpAKQj9Vh0HSd_PXUvDB_EDdmnjwB0j0

[TreasonousBastard]

1. This is just so wrong. What pecksniffian bureaucrat would dare use an inappropriate rule to close...

down such a worthy endeavor?

This isn't opening a deli or car repair shop-- it's a community garden!

It looks like these kids love doing it and the pictures show it's being done very well. Is the real problem that it's black kids doing it?

[babylonsister]

2. pecksniffian!! New word, entirely appropriate.

Yes, this is so mean-spirited, and for what?

[TreasonousBastard]

6. My favorite Dickensian insult. I really should use it more.

[virgogal]

4. It's a commercial venture in a residential area and

local farmers were adding their produce to the stand. The kids could donate to a shelter. It should be shut down.

[TreasonousBastard]

12. Not all that commercial if it's only open two days a month...

https://www.littleoneslearningcenterga.com/garden

And this is part of a statewide Georgia program:

https://www.cbs46.com/news/bridging-the-farm-to-table-gap-for-kids/video_f47e86e7-653d-522b-8637-057af972f649.html#.Wy62ZHpAvrk.gmail

[Hortensis]

16. "Farmers from the West Georgia Co-Op also bring produce"

Come on, give it up. Maybe flex those knees and get the feet solidly back on the ground? We all have better things to leap to outrage over. A lot of them.

[RhodeIslandOne]

10. Because probably a private citizen complained

And "They're just kids!" is not a good defense even against a litigious moron.

[TreasonousBastard]

13. Good chance of that. If so, then off to the dungeons with the heartless complainer. And, as I...

mentioned in another post, this is part of a Georgia statewide program.

[bitterross]

3. It's not zoned for that, don't do it.

What's the problem? If the city makes an exception for the center, they have to make an exception for everyone in the neighborhood. That is not feasible.

It doesn't sound at all like a lemonade stand. It sounds far larger and more formal.

Go to the city and apply for a zoning exception.

[babylonsister]

5. Did you read the article?

The school is trying to get an exception. Meanwhile, the powers that be are perfectly fine charging for the farm stand to keep functioning. I think it would be lovely if the kids' welfare was considered.

So far, the city has only offered to allow the school to sell its produce in a different city-owned location. But it's outside the school's neighborhood, away from the community school leaders want to serve. The school also was offered the chance to pay $50 for a "special event" permit each time it opens the farm stand.

"According to the United Way, Clayton County has the lowest child well-being index out of all the metro Atlanta counties," Okunoren-Meadows says. "So if we're trying to move the needle and figure out ways to improve well-being, I'm not saying the farm stand is the only way to do it, but Little Ones is trying to be part of the solution."

[bitterross]

8. Yes. Pay the permit fee. Don't teach kids to break the rules.

Did you not notice:

Farmers from the West Georgia Co-Op also bring produce to help supplement what's offered at the small stand.

It has, clearly, become more than kids setting up a small stand to sell from like a little lemonade stand.

What part of teaching children how to be citizens includes breaking the local laws and regulations? Just because they are young and cute doesn't mean the adults don't know better and should not obey the law.

[babylonsister]

11. Then your reasoning must apply to their teachers and parents.

And perhaps those farmers are helping the children. Not a lot of money changes hands, so I don't think it's the commercial enterprise you seem to think it is.

Have a nice day.

[bitterross]

19. So, where do we stop? They're learning a valuable civics lesson.

Where is the line? When is it no longer okay to say "they're just kids?"

The school seems to be doing the right thing and there is a lesson in that for the kids that you are totally missing. They're going to the city council to see if they can get the laws changed. That's an important lesson the kids should learn. Not "I don't like that rule, so I should be able to break it." Instead, they are learning civics basics every citizen should know. Just as it should be. If you don't like the law, don't break it. Go to city hall/congress/etc. and try to get it changed. That's your right and duty as a citizen.

I don't have a problem at all with them having to learn a civics lesson. It's too bad others think that exceptions need to be granted without anything other than a bunch of people being unhappy. That's not the way this country works.

[lpbk2713]

7. Did anyone complain or are they just being hardass?

Many minor violations of the law are at the enforcer's discretion every day.

[mopinko]

9. it sounds as tho this fits in their mission.

these snits are so common in urban farming.
we really need to get our heads out of our asses, and look at what is happening to the planet. stop harassing people trying to do the right thing.

[Keg Stand]

14. So this Angela Redding had nothing better to do than pick on little kids.

I think she probably could have let it slide.

"The city argues that if it changes the ordinance, there could be a farm stand on every corner."

Yeah that would be just awful.

[brooklynite]

15. Years ago, a dowager on the Upper East Side publicly complained about someone opening a greengrocers

....on Park Avenue. Because she'd have to look at "vegetables" as she walked by. I believe her suggested alternative was a nice Belgian chocolate shop.

[snort]

17. An exception for schools in their own neighborhoods

serving their students and enhancing education through community interaction sounds like a no brainer.

[GeorgeGist]

18. City Manager ever think of asking for a variance ...

most modern cities are capable of doing this.