LEMONADE HEIST

Outside Cleveland, Ohio recently a group of children selling lemonade were robbed for $13.50 by teenagers driving an old car. It’s not the first or maybe the worst heist of a lemonade stand. However, this news flash brought back some of my own recent memories on the subject.

I was purchasing a glass of lemonade from kids at a corner stand in California, when an Orange County city official approached and told some kids they had to shut their stand down immediately. The fairground manager had called the city and reported that a business had been set up on a street corner across from the fairgrounds, without a business permit and was not collecting sales tax. That individual actually said that the fair manger complained it would cut into the profits of the fair.

I then watched in amazement as another individual approached and insisted to speak to the parents and demanded that the appropriate sales tax be paid for the sales already made. I couldn’t stand it so I protested and said you have to be kidding. I was informed a law enforcement office would be called if I continued to obstruct justice and these city officials doing their duty. The parents remitted the estimated sales tax amount and promptly closed the 10 year old kids’ lemonade stand to avoid further fines and punishments.

Last year I was at a fair ground in northern California by Shasta Lake. I became friends with a “grandpa” that had a snow-cone booth who loved running this little business during the summer with his son and grandson when they were available to help. On the third day of the fair grandpa had gone to the restroom and the grandson was watching his snow-cone trailer.

A city official with the tax commission approached and talked to the grandson. He asked him if his grandpa ever paid him for helping or watching the booth and the child responded that grandpa sometimes gave him a few dollars. That was all the evidence needed to warrant a $5,000.00 fine to grandpa for not having a workman’s compensation policy on his grandson and not having obtained a school work permit as well, even though it was during summer vacation.

Over ten other small mom & pop booths received the same violations that day at this fair. For the rest of the summer, that was a topic of discussion at all these fun events. Of course no one can afford to bring their grandkids with them anymore so a lot are now leaving; what use to be a “summer of fun” industry with our grandchildren.

A few years ago the wife, kids and I opened a tiny pizza place in a small northern Utah bedroom community. It was only opened Monday through Saturday from 5pm until 10pm. For the first few months our own kids help run the place with us for extra spending money.

The business grew a little and their friends started asking for jobs. We eventually employed over 100 youth during the short five year tenure of our business. Our best workers, the most dedicated hard working on time respectful employees were the 14 and 15 year olds. They were always supervised by an adult but we taught them to work the front counter and take orders, run the cash register, make the pizza’s and work with customers.

We even turned the business over to an 18 year old for a week when we went on vacation. He had been with us since age 14 and really had matured and gained the skills to manage and take responsibility. He did an incredible job. They had a blast, learned some skills and how to communicate with adults with respect.

We believed we had a win-win formula; it was a very small operation and really didn’t make much of a profit but those kids had pocket money they had earned and had a lot better idea of the value of money. The demise of our small business was when the State of Utah enacted a new law that required you to be 18 to work in the “dangerous” profession of making pizzas. Since we were a restaurant we could also pay less than the minimum wage at the time. But they also changed a few laws and then required us to pay at least minimum wage as well.

I don’t believe in slave labor or putting kids into dangerous positions and never felt we took advantage of anyone. Before any youth could work at our business their parents had to see what they would be doing and agree to the wage and working conditions. The parents thought it was fantastic. The kids were ecstatic to get the job and we always had a waiting list of new recruits.

Those days are now gone forever. Governmental agencies have way over reached their bounds in restricting our freedoms and limiting our greatest resource… our youth.

I don’t see kids doing paper routs or much of anything anymore to learn basic life skills in their teenage years. Instead they are on the streets with drugs, guns, in gangs and robbing the lemonade stands they should be creating and running.

The family farms are gone and so are the choirs that teach independence and responsibility. The mom & pop business have been over-taken by the huge “box-mart” stores so there are no stock room, sweeping, delivery or dishwashing positions for the youth anymore. Fast food restaurants have so many regulations that a youth of 14 to 17 can’t even earn pocket money. Law officers will go after you if you hire someone less than 18 years of age, but turn their head and ignore the law if that person is an illegal alien with phony identification.

I guess were just lucky those teenage kids didn’t pull a gun at the lemonade heist. Those kids aren’t the problem or the criminals. The government ideologues that create these never-ending rules that limit our independence and freedoms in a pursuit for control and tax revenue are the danger. So are the city workers and employees that blindly “do their jobs” without thinking or conscious as to what’s right or wrong.

I don’t believe it’s the kids fault; we have stood by and let public officials eliminate the opportunities for our youth, in exchange for what, tax revenue, power and control?