Posted on 08/06/2010 4:35:36 AM PDT by Bad~Rodeo
No need to jack up the price of a glass of lemonade. Turns out kids won't have to shell out $120 for a health permit to run their lemonade stands after all.
Multnomah County's top elected official apologized Thursday for health inspectors who forced a 7-year-old girl to shut down her stand last week because she didn't have a food-safety permit.
Chairman Jeff Cogen also said he has directed county health department workers to use "professional discretion" in doing their jobs.
Inspectors told Julie Murphy and her mother, Maria Fife, to stop selling lemonade at the monthly Last Thursday arts festival in Northeast Portland last week. State law technically requires that even lemonade stands have temporary restaurant licenses, which cost $120 for one day.
Cogen said the inspectors were "following the rule book," but should consider that food-safety laws are aimed at adults engaged in a professional food business, not kids running lemonade stands.
"A lemonade stand is a classic, iconic American kid thing to do," he said. "I don't want to be in the business of shutting that down."
Cogen talked with Fife for five to 10 minutes to apologize.
Fife said she appreciated his apology after the furor and her daughter was happy because "she's starting to see it had some effect."
Fife also said a radio station has offered to sponsor a lemonade stand for Julie.
The mother and her daughter had gone to Last Thursday because it seemed like a fun place for Julie to open her first lemonade stand, said Fife, who lives in Oregon City.
But after 20 minutes of selling lemonade made from their gallon jugs of bottled water and Kool-Aid packets, a health inspector asked for their license. They didn't have one, and the inspector warned them to stop or face up to a $500 fine.
Initially, vendors at other booths encouraged them to stay, but the inspector returned with another woman. The crowd surrounded the two inspectors, who felt threatened, Cogen said. Fife and her daughter, who left the street fair crying, packed up and
ping
You think they would have changed their tune without national attention? Doubtful...
This was grounds for violent response, the type where you explain to the people: “They needed a beating...”
Velkom to the Peoples Republic of Portland
Pray for America
The same type of bureaucrats will soon be making decisions about our healthcare.
Funny how local ELECTED officals can be so helpful when it’s an election year.
Your tag line says it all
Most positive news I've heard in a long time in this country.
there should be a law that beuracrats should never be more than ten feet from a bag of feathers and a vat of bubbling tar
Notice how there are no Democratic or Republican labels in front of their names as there would be if these idiots were Republicans.
“Cogen said the inspectors were “following the rule book,”
This is what is so moronic: the “lawmakers” apparently were too stupid to realize that regulating lemonade stands was a bad idea, hence the “regulators” had to make things right by using “discretion” in enforcing the law.
But, of course, with discretion comes lots of potential for abuse of power, e.g., lemonade stands in Republican families are enforced “by the book” while other favored groups escape scrutiny. It converts the rule of law to the rule of men—exactly what the Founders were trying to avoid in a world where power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
“Professional discretion”? Try “common sense.”. A commodity apparently in short supply in the Land of the Bureaucrats.
Always stop at a lemonade stand when you see one...I love the look in a child’s eyes when you give them money. Reminds me of when Dagney in “Atlas Shrugged” gets paid for the first time in Galts Gulch.
How can the IRS seize property without a warrant if the 4th amendment still stands?
The IRS owes you $3,000 in tax returns because of business losses. You don’t file a tax return for that year and explain to the IRS that you don’t want to go to the trouble to do all the accounting to show the business loss. You figure that they will not take it to court when they owe you $3,000.
WRONG! The IRS waits 5 years (the money they owe you expires after 3 years) and files a tax return for you, single no deductions (but they know that you are married and have 1 dependent from the tax returns for the years before and after), back interest and penalty—you owe the IRS $16,000. They just stole $19,000 from you.
You would be surprised at the amount of people who were all in favor of this action on the 7 yo on another thread yesterday. I couldn’t believe it and chalked it up to DU trolls hanging out on FR.
Are you serious???? Do you have a link to the thread? Looks like some zottin’ to do!
If this girl had done this in her own driveway, I’d have no problem with it.
But she dragged her wares down to a local street fair. That’s different.
As far as I am concerned the adults running the street fair shouldn't have to buy licenses either. The government needs to get the noses out of private enterprise and allow people to make money and create jobs. Anyone who thinks this 7 yo should be forced to buy a license has sh** for brains, and that includes you.
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.