Posted on 02/01/2015 6:57:48 AM PST by Zakeet
Two New Jersey teens got a lesson in government regulations this week then they decided to go door to door offering snow shoveling services ahead of the Blizzard of 2015.
The blizzard ended up being a bit underwhelming in N.J., but forecasts ahead of time predicted it would be a whopper. High school seniors Matt Molinari and Eric Schnepf, both 18, decided to go door to door Monday evening handing out flyers offering snow shoveling services for the next morning, NJ.com reported.
Unfortunately they didn't know about their town's ordinance related to soliciting, which prohibits people from selling services door-to-door in Bound Brook without a $450 permit.
(Excerpt) Read more at syracuse.com ...
That’ll teach them for thinking for themselves.
What a sorry state when two enterprising teenagers can’t drop flyers off for snow shoveling.
We get inundated with commercial messages all the time. How about banning key word and profile advertisements. Or stop the tricksters playing legal semantics with the cold calls.
Just have him tell you he is 16. Don't ask for documentation. Apparently asking for documentation is racist.
We prosecute the law-abiding.
The criminals? We mostly look the other way.
Utter govt regulation BS—— as kids up north we would do the same thing. Go door to door and ask if they want to be shoveled. If yes you made a couple of bucks and the neighbor got a service performed. Govt regs/taxes/fees? — never ever crossed the minds. Tyrants.....
There is literally no difference between government and the mafia. You pay tribute or you have some goon come and break your legs.
At least with the Mafia, there's no paperwork. You just pay them the protection money and they leave you alone.
When I see the Witnesses pull in the driveway, I strip down to my tightey whiteys, grab my bottle of Jim Beam, fire up a cigar and some Slaye on the stereo... and right before they touch the doorbell, I fling the door open and bellow, “Come on in girls! The party just started!”.
Three days after the blizzard of ‘78, two boys knocked on the upstairs window of our house in Newport, RI, and told my mom, “For $20, we’ll dig down to your front door, Miss!” She handed them the $20 out the window. We’d been sitting in the kitchen with the oven on for heat, playing Monopoly, for three days.
Maybe they mentioned their enterprise at school, and a teacher ratted them out.
While in this case the person complaining seems to have been a resident of the neighborhood who spotted the youngsters going door-to-door with leaflets, the complaint might just as well have come from someone who viewed them as competitors. I live in snow country, and up here, in towns and cities, their are invariably some businesses which view this type of work as their turf.
The city or town plows the road, but the homeowner usually is responsible for clearing the drive and sidewalks. The businesses who contract to do this, often as an adjunct to the landscaping and lawn maintenance work they do in the summer, are seen all over town early in the morning hustling around town with trailers behind pickups or SUVs, usually with a plow mounted in front and loaded with snow blowers and sometimes even little bobcat-like dozers, which they fire up to get the job done in minutes. A single operator might be able to do thrifty or forty homes, doctors’ offices, gas stations, etc. in a mornings work. On a day of a big storm these guys will often have to hit the property two or more times as the storm continues. While some property owners negotiate a monthly or winter-season fee, most seem to get $50 to $100 a hit or more, depending on the size of the property.
That might seem steep to some folks, but as Kerry found out recently, you might get hit with a $2-300 fine for not clearing your walk.
Two kids with snow shovels might not seem like much of a threat to these operators, but if they talk eight or ten homeowners into letting them do the job, that could mean quite a bit of lost business to folks who think it’s rightfully theirs.
My sympathy is with the kids, though. I would advise them to print up a little postcard with their offer of services and mail it predicted first class to occupants of forty or fifty homes in the neighborhood, assuming they want to do the work regularly. Their problem, I think, will be: they can only do the work on weekends. I expect school hours would make it impractical to try this on weekdays.
It depends if they’re inside a fenced backyard or merely crossing across the front yard to hand out flyers at the neighbors. Big difference. If Mr. Nosey had watched them for more than a second, he’d have known. But we all know he knew what they were doing and was being a major horse’s behind (no offense to horses).
In my area in NJ kids haven’t done it in a while, but Hispanics have offered (at prices that aren’t a bargain anyway). I wouldn’t be surprised if these towns are pushing these laws now because they are the prelude to break-ins; if people don’t answer the door, perps simply break in.
New Jersey, once again proving that it’s the nation’s corrupt toilet!
“I wouldn’t be surprised if these towns are pushing these laws now because they are the prelude to break-ins; if people don’t answer the door, perps simply break in.”
Nonsense! If that were the case, the “permit fee” Wouldn’t be $450! It’s just a union-lead protection racket most likely. You can’t fart in New Jersey without government “permission.”
I think it was 1992. The still good ol' days.
A snowstorm was something we looked forward to. Everyone was out there shoveling, took time out to rest and talk and then continued shoveling. Help was always nearby if needed. Teenagers would walk door to door asking if help was needed... and they shoveled, worked up a sweat. There was the sound of shovels shoveling, people talking, laughing, kids screaming, dogs barking.... Life was in the air. I miss those days.
Now, most hire plow guys or use their snow blowers. One just hears motors on a snow day. No human sound. It's so sad.
I still go out there with my trusty shovel and shovel at night. Every once in a while I'd stop and just listen to the snow fall. Peaceful and eerie simultaneously.
Those two NJ teenagers should have just walked door to door during the day and asked for word of mouth recommendations from each person that hired them to showel.
If Indiana Had such a law when I was growing up I must be a wanted felon.
All such laws regarding “soliciting” should be scraped in their present form.
The only law against soliciting or to “control” it needs no fees or registration, it only needs to say that soliciting cannot be done at any residence or business that has a clearly posted statement near the entrance that says: “No Soliciting”. Such a law only demands our choice to not be solicited is respected. The rest of us are free to respond to solicitors, on a case-by-case basis, as we chose.
Nobody knocks on doors around here and the kids are too lazy to shovel.If the snow was on the ground I would say yea go for it.Going before hand they should have stuck flyers in the mailbox.These guys are adults not 14 year olds and came knocking after dark.If they don’t have a badge on you don’t know who the heck they are.I had two guys show up and asked if I wanted improvements done.They came at 4 and I said no.They came back at 6-30 in the dark and I called the cops.The cops found them and made them get a license and I got a gun.I was alone in the house.
Usually it’s Mexicans who shovel our walk - $20 per person. They’re good and we’ve never had trouble with break ins. This time around, my neighbor did it to show off his snow blower. Thank you, Bill!
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