Saturday, June 18, 2011

I Guess Big Brother Doesn't Like Lemonade

This week the Washington DC metropolitan area is hosting the U.S. Open Golf tournament.  It is being held at Congressional Country Club in Montgomery County, MD - it is smack dab in the middle of one the tonier neighborhoods around here.

This is the big time as the Open is one of THE major tournaments in the PGA.  There are a lot of people, a lot of traffic and a LOT of money to be made.

A bunch of enterprising children decided that this would be the perfect opportunity to raise money for pediatric cancer research by opening a lemonade stand on one of the neighborhood streets leading up to the entrance of the golf course.  Basically - they set up their stand in one of their own front yards.

Enter the Montgomery County inspector.  With his handy dandy ticket book.

[You know this isn't going to be good don't you?]

Ding! Ding! Ding!  The inspector shut down the kids' stand and wrote them a ticket for $500 because he said the children had broken the law by not having a permit to run the stand.

Really? Seriously? [I see you all shaking your heads at the sheer stupidity of this. Me too!]

One of my favorite quotes from the report is "How does a 10 year old actually get a permit by the way?"

The inspector's office said that they did not differentiate between businesses and children, that it was their duty to project the public. [For what it is worth the kids were selling bottles of water, cans of soda and lemonade that was prepackaged - something you and I could buy at the local 7-11. It wasn't homemade lemonade.]

After a bit of publicity and an enormous public outcry the fine was dropped and the kids were allowed to re open the stand - the only concession being that they had to move it to a side street and could not be on the road leading up to the front gates of the club.

I am glad common sense prevailed, honestly - but you have to wonder why it even happened in the first place.

It is over zealousness with a capital "Z".

Hope you all are having a great weekend.  See ya' on the flipside Tadpoles. :D

14 comments:

not displayed said...

My guess is someone connected with the golf was worried some sponsor would be upset with "competition" and rang the county inspector. That sort of thing always seems to originate because of large corporate entities getting thier knickers in a knot

SkippyMom said...

You can't take food and drink into the tournament Mynx, so there is no competition. They set up the stand so the people walking from the outlying parking areas had something to drink in our 95 degree heat. Pretty ingenious.

I guess I should've pointed that out. oops. :)

Sally said...

That's just wrong! So, if they really couldn't let them keep it all, all they needed to do was knock on the parents door and ask them to have the kids take it down! No need for a ticket (even if it was dropped!). *sigh*

Celia said...

The cop must have been bored.

Julie said...

these kids are to be commended for a)thinking of doing this in the 1st place and b) raising money for a worthy cause.
At a time when a lot of "grown ups" complain about kids and their lack of "doing something".......
Pishhhhhh!!

Pity one of the corporate biggies didn't come along with a big fat donation to help the kids out and help out others to boot.
Skippy - if you ever meet these kids- give them a high 5 from me - it's the least they deserve

Lyndylou said...

I'm so with Julie on this one :)

Southhamsdarling said...

I'm with Julie on this one as well. Can you believe that they handed those children a 500 dollar fine! It really does beggar belief. The world has gone completely mad, my friend. Such a good idea of theirs to try and raise money for such a good cause. I get really angry about things like this!! :(

Unknown said...

I hate it when big brother messes with the little ones trying to do something good. We are having a pretty good weekend so far, Linda drove for the first time since the operation and did so well she can not get herself to the therapy sessions. Hope your weekend is great as well.
Odie

Teresa said...

pathetic - just pathetic. i saw that headline on a friend's fb page. just amazing.

Mustang Sally said...

My first guess wouldn't been as Mynx's, but if they couldn't take the drinks in anyways?

Still, I'm betting some corporate bigwig made the call to the inspector. It probably had to have something to do with "image" ... they preferring a "hoity toity" image rather than "Rockwell" one ... idiots.

If indeed it's a question of "law" there STILL should have not been a ticket issued because YES, they are just kids ... not HURTING anyone, and in fact TRYING to help a good cause. Them being in their own front yard it would seem a simple knock on the door and explanation to parents would suffice.

The fact that the fine was dropped is telling, more so as they were told they COULD have the stand on a side street (where they wouldn't be "seen" or passed by the crowd on the way to the Open and thus defeating the purpose).

GRRR this kind of thing makes me so mad!

Rudee said...

Ridiculous. You know, you can get the best education in the world, but it means nothing if you don't have a lick of common sense.

ellen abbott said...

what happened to this country?

Jilda said...

Some folks take their jobs way too serious! He needs a life!

Jo-Anne's Ramblings said...

Yeah was the inspector just in the area or did someone ring him my guess would be someone rang and made a complaint but giving the kids a ticket is just stupid and it is good that is was dropped but makes you wonder what was going on in the inspectors head did he not think it would cause more problems then it was worth.......then again some people just do their job without thinking their actions through.