Silliness, or Don't You Have Something Better To Do?

In what has become a common occurrence, police in Georgia shut down a lemonade stand run by three girls who were trying to make money to go to a water park.   The police say they required several licenses to run such an enterprise, and are working with attorneys to find a compromise that allows the girls to sell their wares.

Really, Barney?  Is the crime rate of Midway so low that the local constable has nothing better to do than to harass little girls who are trying to sell lemonade?

Look, they're not looking to put Coca-Cola out of business with the lemonade recipe that Grandma smuggled out of the old country.  I seriously doubt they'll sell more than a few cups of lemonade to their friends before they give up and go do something else.  They're children, it's what they do.  Things like this are what kids are supposed to do.  Run lemonade stands, babysit, mow lawns, wash cars.  They're all ways that younger kids can learn how to make a dollar without begging for it.

This isn't about public safety.  This is about a government functionary knowing the letter of the law chapter and verse and applying it in a way that flexes his authoritah muscle.  It may not be the fault of the poor beat cop who had to hassle the young ladies.  It could very well be some mindless drone at city hall who is sick and tired of young people learning that if you do something that other people like, they may very well pay you for it.  If the bureaucrat who passes out the business licenses saw the lemonade stand, he could very well raise cain and demand the the police put a stop to the nefarious vending of cold lemonade without a license.  Heaven forfend these young ladies learn a rudimentary lesson in how much it costs to make a glass of lemonade and how to figure out a meaningful profit from that.

In the area where Little Bear and Girlie Bear's mother lives, you have to have to pay for a permit to hold a yard sale, and you're only allowed to hold it on certain days of the month.  Now, I can almost see having designated days for such events because of the traffic and parking issues on the city streets.  But to make someone pay the city a fee to allow them to spread their unwanted belongings on the front yard on a Saturday morning is asinine.

What's next?  Is the boy down the street going to need a groundskeepers license in order to mow lawns over the summer?  Is his sister going to have to get a daycare license in order to babysit a few nights a week?  Am I going to need a mechanic's license to change my oil in my driveway?

The government is not our friend in these circumstances.  When an anally retentive jerk decides to apply the rules for large businesses to our children and to our lives, we've gone horribly wrong somewhere.