Posted on 07/25/2012 7:07:16 AM PDT by MichCapCon
City prevents a 13-year-old boy from selling hot dogs to support his disabled parents and save for college
Click for the video.
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When I was a kid, America was still a free country.
I think the law against food carts in certain areas to “protect brick and mortar restaurants” is stupid and anti-freedom. Having said that, until the citizens can get that law changed, if it is enforced in one instance, it should be enforced in all.
He was trying to run a non-union shop. Shame on him!
I’m all about supporting this kid, but the city is trying to work with him here. In this ONE area, vender carts are not permitted. The city is fine with what he’s doing, but he’s got to move the cart to a legal area.
It’s the parents who don’t want him to move.
Yes, they have a great sob story, but they’ve got to work within the law. If they don’t like the law, they can vote and/or lobby and they change it.
But then their kid will have competition and they wouldn’t like that either.
And I bet there was an issue of city fees and tax to consider. Gotta keep those pensions funded! /sarc
You’d think that the local government might take the kid by the hand so to speak and ‘walk him thru’ the necessary regulations. Maybe waive a few fees? Contrast this with the Government commercial advertising for people to signup for food stamps!
Seems like they never waste an opportunity to stomp on an entreprenuer or to aid a potential welfare recipient.
Busted! I’m guilty of posting without reading the article in it’s entirety. Thanks for the correction.
He was selling the wrong kind of wiener on the corner for the Democrats to approve of it, entrepreneurs are not their base.
Is this the wonderful government our dark lord holds in such high esteem and claims, without which the small business person cannot succeed?
This is EXACTLY what government does to restrict free enterprise and make more of us dependent upon government.
You would be hard pressed to find any group more directly responsible for killing people and making them poor than governments and I mean governments at all levels and in any country of the world. They are killing machines yet way too many people seem to love them.
A few years ago, a friend of mine had a similar experience. She wanted to set up a needlepoint shop in a tiny hole-in-the-wall storefront, but the permits, fees, and regulations generated by the crony capitalists who run the town proved to be too much of a hassle, so she gave up.
I’m glad that kid is not giving up.
Another authoritarian statist is heard from.
Stupid laws just beg to be deliberately broken.
Its the only way to get rid of them.
(BTW, 99% of all laws are stupid and exist to grease the palms of municipal officials.)
Oh, give me a break. This isn’t some kid with a lemonade stand. At some point, if you look like a real business, you have to follow the rules that real businesses do.
And just why are there so many rules for REAL businesses?
The kid wasn’t fined. He wasn’t punished at all. He was simply told to move his cart to a legal area. That’s it! His parents want the cart where *they* want it and are using their sob story to garner a pity party so they can do what nobody else is legally allowed to do in that area.
They want it in that particular location because ‘it’s safer’ and because ‘it makes good business sense’. It makes good business sense because there’s no competition for the kid because VENDERS AREN’T ALLOWED IN THAT AREA.
See, they’re *special*. They believe that they deserve special treatment.
,,,,, “if you have a business you didn’t get there on your own” ,,,, you had to fight city hall and all the federal regulations to get there ,,, you needed a good lawyer .
ME (at age 14): Sir, I’d like to rent one of your small storage units.
STORAGE GUY: What? You are a kid! I can’t rent anything to you! I’m sorry.
ME: OK, there is a guy down the street that might (a lie but not a lie). I’m paying him double what he usually charges. Cash, of course.
STORAGE GUY: Cash? How much?
ME: A thousand up front then twice his monthly rate. He is a pretty smart guy and is going to use my dads name. My dad has no problem with me making money selling my motorcycle parts but he wants them out of the garage (mostly true, kinda). Your unit is nicer so I’d pay you a little more.
STORAGE GUY: Oh, I can do that. OK.
I was in to motorcycles and was buying used bikes and tearing them apart and selling the parts. I was also working part time at a motorcycle shop in the parts department and the owner would sell me parts at cost because I would keep an eye on his son-in-law who was stealing from him.
I was making $2,500 a month. All cash. By the time I was 16 I was buying tractor trailers full of motorcycle parts and chrome aftermarket pieces like luggage racks from bike shops that were going out of business in the northern part of the US. I had talked the shop owner in to fronting me the money and usually all the stuff was sold by his dealership. We split the profits. I’d buy some chrome accessories for $.50 a piece and resell them for at least $20. He did this deal with me because he made money and because I think it amused him.
At one point I started messing with Harley-Davidson parts. That was a whole new market and it was easy to make money. And fun. Especially when the women tried on halter tops I’d buy and sell. I’d give them a discount if they tried them on in front of me:) They didn’t care I was 16. Sometimes this led to more interesting “things”. LOL!
I found myself swapping cycle parts for jewelry and Rolex watches and learned about that stuff. The coolest thing I ever did was pick up a standard Harley-Davidson headlight one day and study it. It looked to me like a GE light so I went to a local auto parts wholesaler and showed it to them. They had the same exact headlight in stock for a car except it had “GE” stamped on it. I bought their entire inventory out. Why? Because the Harley headlight retailed for about $30 and the GE light cost me $1.89. I had a guy with a rubber stamp shop make me up a logo that said “LE ND”. Once I stamped carefully over the GE logo it said “LEGEND”. I had cards made up that said “LEGEND LIGHTING” and sold them for $18.95 each to Harley dealers. They had to pay me via cashiers check up front. Most of them already knew me and it was pocket change to them anyway. I made a deal with my dads friend who owned some Savings and Loans and he cashed the checks for me. He was happy to because he was a Rolex nut and I was selling him the watches and jewelry.
What a country!
Because the voters let their representatives get away with passing them.
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