Young Girl Denied Permit For Lemonade Stand To Help Tsunami Victims

[matcom]

<snip>

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- All 10-year-old Carolyn Lipsick wanted to do was help some kids in a far away place where there was a tsunami, because, she says, "you can't just think of yourself, you have to think of other people."

She had several ideas.

"A coffee stand, a snack stand, a fruit stand, any kind of stand," Carolyn said Monday. Eventually, she settled on selling lemonade and cookies.

So, her mom called the city of Miami Beach to find out what to do about getting a license for her enterprise.

That's when Carolyn got her first taste of dealing with government.

"Food vending's not allowed in our city, so she can't get a license," says Miami Beach spokeswoman Nannette Rodriguez. And that's basically what Carolyn's mom was told on the phone.

"I got really, really mad," said Carolyn.

It was all a big misunderstanding, the city says. They wouldn't have shut her down had she opened some sort of stand, Rodriguez said.

But in the end, the confusion may have been the best thing that could happen. First, a TV station reported that she couldn't get a license. Then suddenly, Carolyn found herself being whisked to Tallahassee by a politician.

"It bothers me to see any child shut down," said state Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher, who paid for her trip to the Capitol.

http://www.wftv.com/irresistible/4068838/detail.html

[SheilaT]

1. My son used to

set up a lemonade stand and often did landslide business. We often joked that all it would take was a neighbor's complaint to shut him down. That never happened, and I have never bothered to find out what, if any, regulations our municipality has about such things.

So I'm not quite certain what to think about this story. It's probably a good thing that the girl's mother had her go about doing things legally. On the other hand, a lemonade stand enterprise is exactly the kind of thing that flies under the radar for the most part, and she probably had no need whatsoever to care about a permit.

But it certainly is a story of bureaucratic idiocy.

[gonefishing]

2. What the heck!

This is often a place where conspiracies are explored. I wonder if this is the same group that had that big incident a few years ago when the neighbor called th cops and then the press helped the girl pay her college fund.

If this is true we have our next Karl Rove!