These stories have been popping up all over the country in recent years. But this one has gained widespread media attention. It happened in a small, one-stop-light town of just over 1000 residents known as Midway, GA, ironically, in Liberty County. It seems the police chief and a trainee were patrolling a residential neighborhood when they came upon 3 young girls ranging in age from 10 to 14 operating a home-made lemonade stand in front of their parents’ mobile home. The girls wanted to go to a water park in a neighboring town. Their mother told them that she could not afford to take the girls, but if they could earn the money themselves, she’d take them to the park. Thus, the plywood over sawhorses, poster board and marker signs, and a pitcher of sweet, home-made lemonade. When the children could not produce a license and permit which costs $50 a day or $180 for the year, the police chief said, “Look, we understand you guys are young, but still, you’re breaking the law, and we can’t let you do it anymore.” With that the 3 young girls were forced to close their lemonade stand.
Defending her actions on the day of the incident, Police Chief Kelli Morningstar added, “The law is the law, and we have to be consecutive, uh, consistent with how we enforce the laws. We were not aware of how the lemonade was made, who made the lemonade, or what the lemonade was made with, so we did act accordingly by city ordinance.”
We called the Midway Police Dept. the next morning assuming that there was more to the story. They were very short in saying that the story shown on television was accurate and complete. By the next morning, the police dept. could not handle the number of angry calls that they were getting. No one answered the phones, and their voice mail box was conveniently full. The mayor stands behind the actions of the police dept.
A week later, in an interview with another local TV station, another officer with the Midway Police Dept. claimed that they shut down the lemonade stand because the girls were dangerously close to the road, unsupervised, and because there are half a dozen registered sex offenders living in the area. Maybe the police dept. should have taken another week or two to work on that response. Keep in mind that this lemonade stand was on private property in a residential neighborhood in a small town. The mother of the 10 to 14 year old girls was inside the home no more than 100 feet away.
Half a dozen registered sex offenders? Really? Is that how police in Midway protect their citizens? By locking them inside so the criminals can roam freely. On second thought, it might be better if the Midway Police Dept. would stick to the standard “no comment”.
Most recently, the police chief and her family were relocated after her home was shot at with a pellet gun.
If there is a hero in this story, it is the citizens who have come to the aid of the 3 girls. The local news affiliate that broke the story offered free tickets to the water park. Calypso Lemonade offered to pay for the license and permits and supply the girls with a summer’s worth of their product at no charge. And, good Americans all over have planned protests. However, the mother of the girls suggested that the purpose of the stand was to teach the children to work hard to earn what they want and not to wait for handouts. No word on whether they have accepted any offers. They did move their stand up the road into Bryan County where they were allowed to operate at a farmer’s market without a license – a move that brought them more business in a day than they would have seen in weeks in their small neighborhood.
Here is some free advice for the lemonade entrepreneurs out there – If the cops try to stop you, change your sign so that you aren’t “selling” lemonade, but rather, “giving” it away for free with a suggested donation. Local authorities don’t have a license or permit for that….yet. But rest assured that your tax dollars are providing a healthy salary and benefits to some official who is diligently working on that right now.
And on that note, if you’d like to show your support of free enterprise in this country, we’d be glad to send you your very own “Legalize Lemonade” t-shirt when you contribute your donation. To order yours today, visit tshirtguerilla.blogspot.com or click the link below.
Unless we stand with each other, for each other, and against our common enemies together, they will bring us to our knees one by one.
For T-shirt Guerilla News, I’m Matt Ashel, and I’m not going to take it anymore.
