Outrageous! Look at all the damage this evil child is doing to the property values in this development! He should be arrested!
(or at least that's what some apparently think, I guess)
Posted on 09/06/2014 12:57:09 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
On the corner of Patricia Avenue and San Salvador Drive in a Dunedin, Fla., neighborhood, 12-year-old T.J. Guerrero operates a lemonade stand to raise money for summer activities with his friends and family.
His stand is usually open in the afternoon, and customers line up to sample his lemonade and baked goods. “I tried the strawberry before and it’s perfect,” one customer commented, according to the Tampa Bay Times. “That’s what it’s about. He’s willing to work.”
Hard work and business skills are the lessons learned in this venture. “It’s all about profit,” T.J. noted. He operates his stand with a little white table and yellow sign on the corner of a grassy lawn. The neighbors enjoy seeing the business flourish in the summer months, reminding them of their childhood. “I had one when I was a little kid. We all did,” said Vincent Titara, who lives nearby T.J.’s lemonade stand. “I think it’s cute.”
But not everyone in the neighborhood was happy with the young boy’s little business.
Wilkey asserts that T.J.’s lemonade stand is an “illegal business” that causes excessive traffic and noise that could reduce his property values.
In a scenario reminiscent of the relationship between fictional characters Dennis the Menace and Mr. Wilson, an older neighbor became increasingly upset with the placement of T.J.’s lemonade stand near his house and tried to force the city government to shut down the boy’s business.
Doug Wilkey, a 61 year-old resident of this Florida neighborhood, emailed City Hall at least four times in two years and requested the police to intervene. Wilkey asserts that T.J.’s lemonade stand is an “illegal business” that causes excessive traffic and noise that could reduce his property values. “The city could possibly face repercussion in the event someone became ill from spoiled/contaminated food or drink sales,” Wilkey speculated in one email.
The Tampa Bay Times reported that in one email to City Hall, Wilkey vented his frustration and wrote this summer that the stand was back “AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Despite the impassioned arguments by this disgruntled neighbor, cooler heads in the local government prevailed. The mayor of Dunedin, Dave Eggers, showed his support by visiting the stand himself and sampling T.J.’s lemonade. “I think it is a great show of entrepreneurship,” Eggers explained. “This 12-year-old is setting a great example. I don’t know what the other neighbor’s problem is, but I would like to talk to him to try to figure it out.”
All across America, busybodies in local government and police are clamping down on “dangerous” food and drink stands.
Dunedin planning and development director Greg Rice summed up the city’s response as simply applying common sense: “We’re not in the business of trying to regulate kids like that; nor do we want to do any code enforcement like that,” he said. “We are not out there trying to put lemonade stands out of business.”
In a strange bit of irony, the Tampa Bay Times discovered that Wilkey himself is running an unlicensed business operation from his home, and is skipping out on paying required taxes. Rice noted that, “[t]he irony is [Wilkey's] not following the rules either, or doesn’t seem to be,” and could face fines up to $250 per day until he comes into compliance. What goes around comes around.
While T.J. will continue to operate his business without interference, other young entrepreneurs have not been as fortunate.
All across America, busybodies in local government and police are clamping down on “dangerous” food and drink stands.
In contrast, the story of the Dunedin government’s response to T.J.’s lemonade stand is encouraging. It can be tempting for a local government official or police officer to respond to every complaint by shutting down a roadside business, or arresting someone to keep the peace. That easy route often ends with a citation, a mug shot or a jail cell. It takes courage for officials to exercise discretion by choosing not to intervene.
While there might be continued pressure from T.J.’s neighbor, Wilkey, to shut down the lemonade stand, the local government in Dunedin can be proud that they stood back and allowed a young entrepreneur to follow his dreams.
And we can all drink (lemonade) to that.
Zoning laws exist for a reason.
The last fifty years of ingesting. sugar has made us all addicts!
"a permanent hot dog stand or a snow-cone business next door in his front yard" - again with the straw man arguments...[shakes head]. Again, please show us in this story where the child was selling hot dogs or snow cones, or where this was a permanent, year-round business.
I feel sorry for the kids in your neighborhood.
Just for the record I didn’t refer to young people as being stupid or in any other derogatory way.
Still, you bring up a good point that I never considered and I bet it slipped by most people. The younger generations don’t make the rules, run up the debt, drive the propaganda, etc., and therefore cannot be blamed for trying to navigate in a world they’ve been brought into.
But their parents and grandparents can for sure.
Outrageous! Look at all the damage this evil child is doing to the property values in this development! He should be arrested!
(or at least that's what some apparently think, I guess)
Oh, and that’s clearly a permanent, year-round hot dog and sno-cone stand!
I personally wouldn’t call it in.
But people also have the right to live quiet and peaceful lives.
My kids have businesses, but we figure out ways to let neighbors enjoy their lives, too.
The article says it’s a summer-long business.
Manta says that Bayport Financial Service opened up in 2006; has a single location; 5 to 9 employees and is classed in the half million to one million range.
It would seem that Dougie has been running his operation out of a residential zoned area; has never obtained a permit or paid the fees for nine years; and probably has some employees parking on his lot or on the street.
Hey Dougie, are you paying the requisite payroll taxes on your troops? Are you claiming your buildings on your IRS returns? Are the Dunedin property taxes higher on commercial operations? If so, did you pay that rate?
We are just curious buddy.
True, you did not. I was generalizing.
A person who is in his early 60s now, like the antagonist in this story, was born in the early 1950s. Many posters say this was an absolutely marvelous period in American history. However, somehow this man turned out to be both a nuisance and a hypocrite. People his age are at the top of politics and corporations.
iirc isn't this is the same whiny sniveling POS that is being investigated for, now get this, running an UNLICENSED BUSINESS OUT OF HIS HOUSE???
Back in the early fifties I would spend a few hours after church, popping my special popcorn with special spices, box it, put it in my red wagon and sell it to the folks all around the neighborhood, for their Sunday afternoon snack.
Had great success, but probably because I was a cute little tike.
I wonder how I could do that today, as Mooch’s police would ban the carbs; the FDA would tell me that I hadn't prepared it with gloves on; the town and state would tell me- not licensed; the EPA would certainly cite my noncompliance, causing global warming from cooking oil in my basement; the state would force me to buy a sales tax license, and my $.50 cent popcorn would cost $.55&1/2 cents, with my CPA monitoring my tax reimbursements; the police would tell me to get my little red wagon off the street, and get back onto a sidewalk; my lawyer would advise me to get liability insurance, in case a customer got a kernal caught in his throat,
And finally my Dad would have said; Son, it's not worth it, here's $4.00 to get you off the street, just sit your fat ass down, and watch some TV, while eating your special popcorn!
I'm sure ol' Dougie has a promising career (if he doesn't already have one) in some Kafkaesque bureaucratic government agency. Rules for thee but not for me, ya know?
yup, must be a RAT...
What really disheartens me are the Freepers on this thread who apparently are on this RATs’ side.
100%... it's not like he gonna do it forever, and another conservative entrepreneur is born
sounds like an house needing a egging.
Thanks for the ping!
i was thinking union schoolteacher or some other union govt worker. possibly psychologist or social worker, maybe dnr worker.
I believe it is.
The only “real issue” would be health any other “issue”is mere governmental oppression.
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