Want to open a business in America? It isn't easy. Posted on 02/24/2012 3:55:19 AM PST by Kaslin
Want to open a business in America? It isn't easy.
In Midway, Ga., a 14-year-old girl and her 10-year-old sister sold lemonade from their front yard. Two police officers bought some. But the next day, different officers ordered them to close their stand.
Their father went to city hall to try to find out why. The clerk laughed and said she didn't know. Eventually, Police Chief Kelly Morningstar explained, "We were not aware of how the lemonade was made, who made the lemonade and of what the lemonade was made with."
Give me a break. If she doesn't know, so what? But kids trying their first experiment with entrepreneurship are being shut down all over America. Officials in Hazelwood, IllinoisIll., ordered little girls to stop selling Girl Scout cookies.
It made me want to try to jump through the legal hoops required to open a simple lemonade stand in New York City. Here's some of what one has to do:
-- Register as sole proprietor with the County Clerk's Office (must be done in person)
-- Apply to the IRS for an Employer Identification Number.
-- Complete 15-hr Food Protection Course!
-- After the course, register for an exam that takes 1 hour. You must score 70 percent to pass. (Sample question: "What toxins are associated with the puffer fish?") If you pass, allow three to five weeks for delivery of Food Protection Certificate.
-- Register for sales tax Certificate of Authority
-- Apply for a Temporary Food Service Establishment Permit. Must bring copies of the previous documents and completed forms to the Consumer Affairs Licensing Center.
Then, at least 21 days before opening your establishment, you must
arrange for an inspection with the Health Department's Bureau of Food Safety and Community Sanitation. It takes about three weeks to get your appointment. If you pass, you can set up a business once you:
-- Buy a portable fire extinguisher from a company certified by the New York Fire Department and set up a contract for waste disposal.
-- We couldn't finish the process. Had we been able to schedule our health inspection and open my stand legally, it would have taken us 65 days.
I sold lemonade anyway. I looked dumb hawking it with my giant fire extinguisher on the table.
Tourists told me they couldn't believe that I had to get "all those permits." A Pakistani man said: "That's crazy! You should move to Pakistan!"
But I don't want to move to Pakistan.
Politicians say, "We support entrepreneurs," but the bureaucrats make it hard. The Feds alone add 80,000 pages of new rules every year. Local governments add more. There are so many incomprehensible rules that even the bureaucrats can't tell you what's legal. In the name of public safety, politicians strangle opportunity.
It’s much easier to use sell weed down in da ‘hood.
I doubt the absurdity of this would even register with Police Chief Kelly Morningstar - just one of the many government thugs we have turned our liberty over to. The frog is boiling now. Too late to jump out I fear.
The people who write these excessive rules and regulations need to be hanging from lamp posts.
BUMP
John Stossel had a show about a year ago (it might have been less) on FOX News and he showed how red tape someone has to go through
‘Public Safety’ is just a pretext - the tiniest of fig-leaves - for bureaucratic control over even the minutia of our lives....
” The people who write these excessive rules and regulations need to be hanging from lamp posts. “
You’d have to get a permit for that, of course...
These young girls had acquired more business experience than O’Boner by opening this lemonade stand. This will not be tolerated!
Think this is bad?
Hahahahahahahaaa!
Four more years of Obama’s Marxist rule, and you’ll need to fill out four assorted government forms in triplicate and get three different permits just to take a dump.
Don’t even DREAM about opening a new business, while operating an existing business will be a sweat-soaked nightmare.
And six years from now, he’ll STILL be blaming it on Bush.
Sadly the fuzz closing down a little kids lemonade stand has now happened countless times in recent years.
In the past they’d buy a cup.
Does this clerk know how Pepsi is made? What is in Pepsi, the conditions of the factories that make the syrup, the quality of the ingredients in the syrup?
Yet, surpringly - vending machines can sell Pepsi/Coke products without any hassles from City Hall.
It makes me wonder what kind of rigamorale you’d have to go through wanting to mow the neighborhood’s lawns for a few bucks, like I did when I was kid.
Health & Safety training course, insurance, possibly a business license, etc., etc.
I wouldn’t want to move to Pakistan either(nothing against Pakistanis; I’ve known a few here in Europe, and generally they’re very nice folks), but the Pakistani Mr. Stossel spoke to may have had a point regarding excessive red-tape. That made me chuckle.
When it would be easier for you to operate a lemonade stand in Lahore or Islamabad than anywhere in America, regulation has gone too damn far.
Even so, some Freepers believe we’ve lost jobs to China because our import tariffs are not high enough.
Even so, some Freepers believe we’ve lost jobs to China because our import tariffs are not high enough.
Milk, milk, lemonade. The other side is where fudge is made.
That is the point. Many restaurants give the police free coffee, donuts or whatever. These kids expect to be paid.
If and when the collapse comes you won't be able to start a business or subsistence business.
You won't be able to sell your homegrown vegetables...recall they passed a law for that protecting us from the ‘organics’ of home farming.
Your wife cannot bake bread to sell without a Air Permit, as the offgasing of baking bread is pollution.
Any of these items will require permits from all levels of government and the accompanying insurance requirements.
Folks, there is not a thing we can do that is not regulated for tax or government revenue.
I've said it before here in FR, I'll share the story again...a liberal friend asked me at Christmas time what my biggest business expense was for my new small venture. I told her the government taxes, fee's, permits at all levels of government. I can't even hang door-hanger advertisements without paying $150-$300 fee per city I work in.
Sorry but this is bad grammar. It should be: Big difference from when my little friends and I tried to open a lemonade stand in the Bronx, NY
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.