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August 08, 2005
License to Kill Competition
If this doesn't prove that the purpose of government licensing is not to protect consumers but to protect existing businesses, nothing will:
They may have been squeezed out of the lemonade business, but two Salem boys say they are not bitter.
Dominic Serino, 9, and his neighbor, Ryan Decker, 11, were forced Saturday to shut down their lemonade stand at Salem Common after an employee of a nearby sausage vendor called police, complaining that the boys were hurting his sales.
The budding entrepreneurs had to call it quits, under orders by some reluctant police officers. The boys, after all, did not have a license, and rules are rules. The two packed up and trudged home. But they said yesterday that they remain fans of the sausage man. . . .
"I didn't tell the police, 'Listen, throw these kids out of here,' " Clowery said. "I am superapologetic. I just didn't want them to be within direct line of sight. It's a tourist area. We spend big money for the spot."
As usual in the land of the free, the parents are standing up for their kids' freedom--right? Wrong.
"I have talked to Ryan about 'the law is the law' and you have to abide by that," Angela Decker said.
She said the parents were using the stand to help teach the boys the basics of running a business, but the lemonade controversy created a real-life civics lesson for them, too. Now, she said, they will help the boys explore the option of applying to the city for a waiver from a license, which typically costs about $2,000.
"We don't want the boys to give up," she said. "It's about doing the right thing and doing it right."
And two more sheeple are raised to love the State.
Posted by Mike Tennant at August 8, 2005 09:31 AM
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