Police Chief Busts Midway Georgia Kids Lemonade Stand in Health Concerns

by hearit

Apparently it's not the "growing city with a hometown feel" that Midway, Georgia, advertises as its city slogan: Three kids trying to raise money to visit a local water park are busted--the girls' lemonade stand shut down, forced to close by the Midway city's police chief. This is serious: The Chief cites health concerns. Where did that lemonade come from?
 
Three young girls had started up their lemonade stand in Midway (GA) when Police Chief Kelly Morningstar and an officer did a drive-by. Apparently not a lot goes down in Midway, when the city's police chief is personally responsible for closing a lemonade stand run by young kids.
 
"Look, we understand you guys are young but, still, you're breaking the law -- and we can't let you do it anymore." "Anymore" kind of insinuates the cops knew the law was being broken before day two of operation, when the stand was shut down. And that doesn't seem quite "consecutive, er, consistent."
 
The local water park has ended up donating entry tickets to the three young girls who made a (short-lived) July foray into entrepreneurship. "It’s kind of crazy that we couldn’t sell lemonade," says14-year-old Casity Dixon of Midway -- one of the lemonade sellers busted by Georgia police. "It was fun, but we had to listen to the cops and shut it down."
 
Midway city law requires business and food permits at 50 bucks a day -- $180 for the year.
 
The July 2011 shutdown isn't the first famous lemonade stand closure, involving enterprising young children, in recent times: Less than a year ago, an Oregon kid was in full swing of operating her lemonade enterprise in August 2010 -- selling the lemon beverage for a whopping 50-cents a cup -- when the young girl was surprised by a health inspector visit at a local Portland-area arts fair, and told the stand had to be shut down. The county inspector, who asked the child and her mother to view a restaurant license, left the 7-year-old lemonade entrepreneur in tears.
 
Apparently the 7-year-old girl “wasn’t up to snuff” in terms of previously obtaining a business license: The health inspector threatened a $500 fine if the Oregon kid's lemonade stand wasn't closed immediately. It was a PR nightmare that turned embarassing for the city and mayor who later issued apology to the young, Oregon entrepreneur.
 
Jeff Cogen, county chairman of Multnomah County in Oregon, says health inspectors were "just following the rule book" when they booted the girl's lemonade stand. Multnomah County chairman Cogen later admitted, after a media nightmare, health inspectors should've cut the enterprising girl a break — issuing public apology to the Murphy family: "A lemonade stand is a classic, iconic American kid thing to do," Cogen told Oregon news crews. "I don't want to be in the business of shutting that [entrepreneurialism] down."
 
Perhaps Midway city should be taking note.
 
“The law’s the law,” claims Midway police chief Morningstar. Midway is one city that cracks down on 'crime'. Interestingly, police officers and law enforcement are taught to differentiate between the law itself and the “spirit of the law”.  Apparently the 'spirit of the law' and that promised Midway "hometown feel" are both missing from the Georgia city. 
 
The Midway lemonade stand closure is kind of similar, except that cops aren't a health inspector -- despite statements that seem to be contradictory. In one of the strangest reasons for forcing out a kid's lemonade stand, the Georgia police chief seems to be citing health concerns as reason for the July bust. According to Midway's police chief who ousted the Georgia enterprise: "We were not aware of how the lemonade was made, who made the lemonade, of what the lemonade was made with, so we acted accordingly by city ordinance.”
 
Apparently the city of Midway performs analysis or testing on food products sold by those who obtain and hold business or food permits in the Georgia locale. And if you believe that, we've got a water park to sell you.

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