This time they’ve gone too far.
The Overton Police Department of East Texas is under fire after it shut down a lemonade stand run by two little girls. Officials released video of the incident on Thursday, which is unlikely to improve their image.
Zoey and Andria Green were busted for setting up their stand too close to the curb of a residential street. A code enforcement officer further deduced that the girls, who are 7 and 8 years old, hadn’t acquired the proper permit before setting up shop.
“It is a lemonade stand, but they also have a permit that they are required to get,” Overton Police Chief Clyde Carter told KLTV. “We have to follow by the state health guidelines. They have to have a permit if they’re going to do the lemonade stands,” he added.
The Green sisters had come up with the idea to sell lemonade while looking for a way to raise money for a Father’s Day gift.
“We had kettle corn and lemonade. The lemonade was for 50 cents and the kettle corn was a dollar, but if you got both it was a dollar,” Zoey told reporters. They had reportedly raised over $25, about 25 percent of their goal, before their run-in with the man.
The city normally charges $150 for a “peddler’s permit,” but offered to waive the fee. As it turns out, however, it is also illegal under state law to sell lemonade without an inspection, because lemonade must be refrigerated to prevent the growth of bacteria, KLTV reported.
“We just have to enforce ‘em, we don’t write ‘em,” an officer in the video is overheard telling the girls’ mother.
The girls have decided to stick it to the man and reopen their lemonade stand this Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to noon. The juice is free, but donations are welcome.
H/T KLTV. Photo via Elvert Barnes/Flickr (CC BY SA 2.0) | Remix by Jason Reed