Posted on 08/10/2012 9:48:41 AM PDT by MichCapCon
HOLLAND, Mich. Several weeks after a city zoning officer shut down his hot dog business, 13-year-old Nathan Duszynski and his parents are homeless.
The family was hoping Nathans hot dog cart could help them through a difficult time. Nathans mother, Lynette Johnson, suffers from epilepsy and his stepfather, Doug Johnson, has multiple sclerosis. Their illnesses have restricted them from finding permanent, full-time work.
The family receives about $1,300 a month in disability payments, Medicaid and food assistance. The three are having a hard time staying together. MLive confirms what the Mackinac Center learned Thursday Nathan and his mother are staying at the Holland Rescue Mission.
"Nate and I are now in a shelter," Lynette Johnson said. "Doug can't stay with us because he takes prescription narcotics to deal with his pain and the shelter does not allow him with those kinds of drugs."
She said the situation has been stressful on the family. Lynette is afraid to be away from her husband in case she has a seizure.
Nathan wanted to help out his family by selling hot dogs from a cart he bought with money he saved. He worked out an arrangement with the owner of a local sporting goods store to sell hot dogs in the parking lot. The owner of the store thought it would be a great way to attract customers and even offered Nathan a sales commission if he got people to rent his motorized bicycles.
The city of Holland, however, shut down the business 10 minutes after it opened, informing Nathan it was in the citys commercial district where food carts not connected to downtown brick-and-motor restaurants are prohibited. The Mackinac Centers coverage of the issue has drawn national attention.
Last week, Nathan and his family made an appeal to the Holland City Council. Mayor Kurt Dykstra defended the citys ordinance, saying it was to protect downtown restaurant owners, who asked that the "success of the downtown district not be infringed upon by those who don't share in the costs of maintaining the attractiveness of that space."
Let’s see if the Obama campaign can tie this to Romney?
The sad thing is, the kid and his family sound fully willing to help themselves out, but a dickweed mayor and city council are preventing them from doing so.
My frustration with this story is that the city was willing to work with them. There were many other areas where the boy could put his cart, but his parents wouldn’t hear of it. They wanted the cart where *they* wanted the cart.
One of their reasons? “It makes good business sense.” They wanted to put the cart where there was no competition!
Now the story paints the city as if they were the bad guys when this family flatly refused to work within the same rules that every other vender works with. As soon as they heard that they couldn’t have it their way, they whined to the press, gave up and made the boy sell the cart.
IMHO, these people are acting like spoiled brats and milking the sympathy factor for all it’s worth.
He didn’t become homeless by himself. Government made it possible.
The idea is to crush individuals. They got the guns and the courts. So easy in a tyranny.
While I admire and support the boy’s efforts, I personally can’t see anyone buying a hot dog in a parking lot from a 13 year old kid unless it was a “donation for a worthy cause” and the hot dog as lunch for Fido.
Another example of our mafia-like, crony loving, gangster government hurting the poor.
Heavan forbid the poor should try to sell something by the roadside without showing the necessary obeisance to, and sharing the profits with, the arm-twisting thugs of our collectivist overseers...
Government picking winners and losers.
If kid did not have access because his cart did not pay taxes to maintain area, then all the free-riders should not be allowed down there either.
I bet the major ran off right afterwards and masturbated thinking about his big victory.
Keep tolerating criminals. Its all so loving and liberal.
Basically the owners of other businesses use the local government to dictate what the sporting goods store owner can do. He saw it as a promotional thing with the potential to attract business while helping the kid and his family out.
Just goes to show that if business wants out from under the thumb of government, they need to refrain from running to government for solutions to minor problems. If they were smart they would have asked him to rotate to other locations in the area.
Sorry, but when a community has laws against people selling food without permits and health inspections I’m fine with it. Just the same as I was fine with the illegal alien in California getting arrested for selling tamales without permits or health inspections.
I admire the kid’s entrepreneurial spirit but he needs to focus on a legal enterprise.
Did we read different articles? I didn't read anything about where his cart was not up to code or not subject to health inspections.
Obviously the owner of a business was happy to have the cart there and provided space ON PRIVATE PROPERTY to allow the cart to operate.
I admire the kids entrepreneurial spirit but he needs to focus on a legal enterprise.
He had all his permits and inspections. The city zoning commission shut him down because he might compete with local restaurants.
Apparently the city didn’t him that BEFORE he paid for his permits and inspections.
Oh, no. From earlier articles that I read, he was just fine from a health and safety perspective.
The city just told him he had to put the cart somewhere else.
And his parents threw a huge pity party over that.
Because, don’t you know, they’re *special*... The rules don’t apply to them because they have a good sob story. They weren’t upset with the rules, they just thought that they should be the exception.
I'd agree with you if his cart would have been situated on public property downtown. However, his cart would have been on private property.
They get a sizable monthly check, have all the dumpy apartments and trailers disappeared in Michigan?
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