Posted on 01/29/2015 5:20:42 AM PST by Enlightened1
Earlier this week, Matt Molinari and his friend Eric Schnepf, both seniors in High School, were going door-to-door advertising their snow shoveling services in advance of the storm. School was out, and instead of sitting inside and playing XBOX, these two young entrepreneurs felt the fire of enterprise and decided to turn their down time into an actual dime.
However, Molinari and Schnepf apparently didn’t realize that in order to make a dime you have to pay a quarter — to the state. When the two boys were out trying to rustle up some business during what they saw as an opportunity, along came the uniformed agents of the state, to put this unapproved business venture out to pasture.
“We weren’t looking to break the law. We just didn’t know the law,” Molinari tells Jim Smith on his WCBS 880 radio show.
The cops then gave these two kids a lesson in statist economics, which consequently ended their high school snow shoveling business.
“They need a permit, unpermitted solicitation is not allowed,” Molinari said, recalling what the police told them.
In this particular county, anyone selling goods and services door to door must apply for a license that can cost as much as $450 for permission that is valid for only 180 days; after all freedom ain’t free.
Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/cops-shutdown-high-school-kids-earn-money-shoveling-snow/#mxj5uyWccCAog7gj.99
(Excerpt) Read more at thefreethoughtproject.com ...
Right, because we can't ask police officers to use their brain or anything.
My gosh my friends and I were CRIMINALS! I better send the state of CT my lawn mowing and snow removal money along with interests of 40 years of non tax payments. /s
don’t know much about law enforcement then do you.
If they are called out and fail to do anything it is they who get in trouble.
I;m sure though when you got told to do something at work you used your brain and pissed it off telling the boss you don’t agree.
Some fatarse union fug who took a drunk day 'cause it was too cooode to go to the job.
And somehow that doesn't stick in your craw as a violation of the fundamental right to the pursuit of happiness?
In order to get the permission from the local government a teenager needs to pony up $450 in protection money from the Local Mob otherwise they are going to blow up their business.
What I think a lot of you posters are missing is that these kids probably woke up somebody who was sleeping after working the night shift and that guy called the cops on the kids because he (rightfully!) does not like to be disturbed in the privacy of his own home.
And if they had paid the $450 in protection money to the Local Mob then they would not have woken up the neighbors?
This does not compute.
The fact of the matter is that the only reason these kids were cited is because they were NOT illegal aliens. All the jobs that teenagers used to do like mowing lawns, raking leaves, shoveling snow, washing cars, painting fences is now being done by illegal aliens who are either working under the table for crooked contractors or working on their own without getting any of those silly "permits."
One should not need a "permit" to shovel your neighbors' snow, or mow your neighbor's lawn, or knock on the neighbor's door and ask if there isn't some odd job that a teenager might be able to do to earn some cash to pursue their happiness.
Sometimes I marvel at how much the liberal mentality of "government knows best" has infected this site.
The Colonists went to war with the most powerful country in the history of the world over a tax on tea, and yet we have freepers who are so brainwashed into the "government knows best" theology that they are willing to defend a government that effectively shuts down the ability of teenagers to learn to work by the sweat of their brow and to profit from their labor.
So you want the government to pass overreaching laws to protect you from your own stupidity? There are laws (that are as old as the law itself) that prohibit fraud. If the purpose of this law was to protect these neighbors from fraud, then why does this law prohibit these teenagers from doing an honest day's work for an honest day's pay?
Wintertime Nanny State PING!
There is plenty of blame to go around. Lawmakers were stupid (or more likely corrupt) to pass that law. The police were also stupid (or ordered to support corruption) for enforcing a bad law. As a juror, I would ignore that law and go for jury nullification - someone has to do the right thing.
That argument cuts both ways.
I don’t know of any jurisdiction that doesn’t have trespess laws. You can go to wall mart and pick up your no solicitation sign without passing a law. That’s my approach: assert your property rights on your own property.
Passing a law that allows no solicitation anywhere forces your opinion about who you want on your property onto others’ property. Unless you bought every house in your jurisdiction, you just limited other peoples’ right to allow neighbor kids to offer services they might want.
Let’s be clear about the law in question here as well. This law didn’t ban solicitation. It required a payment of a fee that irritating businesses and charlatans can afford, but neighborhood kids can’t. So who, exactly, is this law protecting, the property owner? I don’t think so.
I have a source that says it is none other than Raquel Ochmonek!
She made her report to the Alien Task Force.
Post #90
A general ban? And you favor such an overreaching law in order for you not to have to go to the store and put a "No Solicitors" sign on your door?
What kind of big government nanny stater are you?
Why are you here on FREE Republic promoting big government solutions to insignificant and illusory problems?
If you don't want solicitors, then get a sign and put in in your yard or on your door. But you don't blanketly prohibit your neighborhood teenagers the right to pursue happiness simply because one or two of the neighbors are too lazy to get a sign saying no thanks in advance.
Should we outlaw guns because some people might abuse them?
Should we ban shorts because some people with ugly legs might offend us?
Where does it end?
There appear to be a whole lot of Nanny Staters that are posting on this thread.
-PJ
***So you want the government to pass overreaching laws to protect you from your own stupidity?***
Maybe that is why they descend on this area like locusts after every windstorm or tornado preying on widow women and gouging them for all they can get, because the widow women are so STUPID? We have no GREEN RIVER ORDINANCE laws here.
Whatever a GREEN RIVER ORDINANCE is, do you think it would stop scammers from descending on suckers? Do these predators get the permits? Probably not, but if they did, would it prevent them from scamming? Probably not.
These ordinances are designed to stifle competition from entrepreneurs and to fund the government largess.
Any law which would prohibit a teenager from doing yard work in his neighborhood without paying an exhorbitant fee for permission from the government lords is a violation of the right to pursue happiness.
We don't think in those terms anymore. Government has become so intrusive that we accept without question these kinds of tyrannical laws which interfere with our right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Instead we pay the tribute to the government Lords without even questioning whether or not those Lords have the right to demand tribute.
And there appear to be a lot of Freepers who have fallen into that trap.
Actually, I’m paid to use my brain, and engage it (gasp) even when on the job. Apparently that’s not a universal thing.
This is just more garbage from a cop hater website.
.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_River_Ordinance
“The name Green River Ordinance is given to a common United States city ordinance prohibiting door-to-door solicitation. Under such an ordinance, it is illegal for any business to sell their items door-to-door without express permission from the household beforehand. Some versions prohibit all organizations, including non-profit charitable, political, and religious groups, from soliciting or canvassing any household that makes it clear, in writing, that it does not want such solicitations (generally with a “No Trespassing” or “No Solicitations” sign posted.)
The ordinance is named for the city of Green River, Wyoming, which in 1931 was the first city to enact it.[1] The ordinance was unsuccessfully challenged on constitutional grounds by the Fuller Brush Company in 1932.[2]
The ordinance has been challenged before the Supreme Court on several occasions.”
Yet we claim to be a free poeple....
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