This is an emergency post of sorts because Nextdoor gave me the opportunity to edit my lemonade stand post regarding the legality of the venture.
As many of you know I seldom pass a little kids lemonade stand without sampling the goods even though I know that by doing so I am committing the criminal act of knowingly patronizing a criminal establishment.
As most of us are aware the kids don't have business licenses, health inspection and don't report their earnings to the appropriate tax authorities making them entirely illegal operations.
Of course nobody really care except a small handful if self-appointed indignant dip-$hit do-gooders. These are the same people that make it their job to ruin things for everybody else.
Generally these were the people that would wake up on November first shocked and wondering why they were the only one on the street to find their trees dripping with toilet paper, their cars egged, their windows waxed or soaped and occasionally parts of their house freshly painted with a non matching colored paint.
I seldom pass up a lemonade stand for a number of reasons. I have never gotten a bum glass of lemonade or a bad cookie from a little kid's stand. The stands are generally spotless and could pass a health board inspection because Mom check things out carefully to avoid being embarrassed. The kids are truly delightful and most are cute as a button.
They're also honest to a fault and make the correct change and remind you that you might have overpaid unless you tell them up front to keep the change. In which case they're grateful. I attribute this as generally too young to have a lot of guile.
Almost invariably the kids are a joy to be around. Sometimes when one of the parents wander by they're generally halfway decent and just trying to do a good job raising kids. Some parents use the lemonade stand as a learning experience for the kids. They sit down with them and show them the costs of making the lemonade and what they sell it for and explain the way profits work.
I would imagine a few entrepreneurs have been created by this. The one I visited the other day actually had their PayPal and Venmo information printed on a sheet of paper on the table. I admit I was amazed. It looked like the kid is off to a good start!
Needless to say, as an Old School outlaw I paid cash to help them along with the criminal aspect of the operation.
The thing that entertains me the most is the very fact that those lemonade stands are de facto criminal organizations yet only a few miserable souls say anything about it.
Even a lot of cops keep a couple of bucks in their pockets to encourage the kids to learn and to show a little initiative.
Fact is I patronize them because they ARE criminal organizations and an American Institution. This country was started by outlaws and there is nothing that gladdens my heart to help a small child embark on a life of crime. I always pray that they grow up to be the kind of person that would throw the tea into Boston Harbor.
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My all time hands down lemonade stand story I heard years ago from a Southern boy I worked with.
Seems in his county Ol' Betty-Lou-Thelma-Liz, a miserable old bag started calling his county sheriff's office reporting lemonade stands every time she saw one.
Now a good southern sheriff pretty much runs the county and sets the pace for handling law enforcement. He know what to enforce and what to overlook. It's an elected position. A truly great one sometimes throws in a little mad man type entertainment once in a while.
Anyway, Betty-Lou-Thelma-Liz wasn't getting any results from the sheriff (who probably frequented the stands often) so she called the State Police. Of course the State police ignored her also but teased the sheriff about the county being overrun by 'desperate criminals'. It galled the sheriff.
The sheriff called in every favor he had with the town law enforcement agencies in the county and arranged a devious plot. He also tipped off the local county weekly paper.
He had his brother have his son, the sheriff's nephew, to open a lemonade stand one Saturday morning at 0900.
At 1100 over fifty assorted police vehicles and about 75 assorted lawmen descended on his nephew's lemonade stand and raided it!
Seventy-five assorted helmeted shotgun carrying officers ran around in circles searching for evidence. The entire stand was impounded and put in Bubba Smiths' pickup to be carted off to the station to serve as evidence.
The editor of the local paper got a picture of a handcuffed little kid with a mean scowl on his face being escorted off my a pair of stern-faced helmeted deputies packing shotguns. It wound up on Page One of the county weekly paper.
The crowning joy of the newspaper report was a picture of the kid sitting in a cell scowling and he was quoted as saying that there wasn't a jail made that could hold him.
There were even pictures of his 'shocked' parents watching their son being carted off.
Shortly afterwards the potential Academy Award winning kid 'escaped' and made a beeline for Bubba Smith's pickup.
Needless to say, Bubba Smith took the kid home and helped him stuff the whole stand into the garage.
Betty-Lou-Thelma-Liz (or whatever her name happened to be) was awarded the distinction of being awarded the paper's of being listed as 'citizen of the year' for reporting the crime.
Needless to say, the sheriff was reelected by a landslide for the small county entertainment he had provided on top of being a good LEO.
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