
Austin’s Regulations for Kid Lemonade Stands - luu
http://ij.org/austins-regulations-kid-lemonade-stands-unintentionally-hilarious/
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rm_-rf_slash
I have a better idea: give the kids an option to print out a piece of paper
formatted by the local government that reads:

"The city of Austin seeks to strike a balance between encouragement of
entrepreneurship and safety to the consumer. This establishment is not
compliant with restaurant-grade cleanliness standards. By posting this
certificate, the vendor acknowledges some basic restrictions (no handling of
raw meat etc), and the customer accepts the risk of consuming at an
unregulated establishment. Any blatant violations to the health code should be
reported to (blah blah blah)."

One printer, one piece of paper, some tape. We can do better.

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wyager
Soon we'll hear about how Austin is offering tax incentives to soda companies
to make up for the lack of lemonade stands.

As someone who lives in Austin, many people here are absolutely delusional
about Austin's attractiveness and future. Austin's once-interesting
college/hippie culture is rapidly dying and being replaced by a suburban
megalopolis culture (San Austonio, here we come). Historically low cost of
living is going up (in no small part due to Californification of Austin
politics (and I used to live in CA, so I know what this looks like)). Austin's
already crumbling infrastructure cannot handle more people. Commutes are
already atrocious and are getting worse.

Everything that made Austin attractive to tech workers is going away. Unless
the Austin government gets out of the way, Austin's budding tech industry will
die.

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
Government is the greatest asset and liability to any business.

On one hand, it took sweet, juicy government grants and contracts to lay the
economic and knowledge foundation that was needed for Austin to grow into a
tech hub.

On the other hand - and this is a particularly American tendency - people want
a perfect society and a free society. What they often get is neither, and only
sometimes both.

There is still plenty for government to do. No private actor has the will or
power to solve the traffic problem alone. Condofication and breakneck sprawl
need government intervention or else things will keep going the way they are:
worse. And then you've got the perpetual rejections of mass transit plans and
of course Prop 1.

But sadly I think you're most right about the Californication of politics,
which will only cement the old guard against the newcomers, encourage bullying
over discussion, and make it ever harder to fix the problems that grow by the
day.

~~~
blisterpeanuts
Uber and Lyft are a nice, private sector solution to excessive car ownership.
But Austin got rid of them.

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
Like I said, perfect society, free society. Austinites wanted more assurance
that they would be safe in Uber/Lyft drivers' cars, and rightly so. There have
been enough of cases of Uber drivers committing violent acts against
passengers to make people afraid and want more security. They made their
opinions clear via referendum, a shining example of democracy in action.

But democracy != capitalism; China proved that. They swung the pendulum too
far, and now nobody's happy.

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gumby
Palo Alto too: about 10 years ago my kid tried to sell herbs from his wagon on
the street by at the farmer's market (no snickering: peppermint, thyme etc).
The woman who "runs" the market called the cops. The poor cop said he didn't
see why he should put an end to things but that if the woman kept calling the
cops he'd have to tell my kid to stop...which is what happened. Really a
terrible lesson in entrepreneurship, especially for Palo Alto!

At least it did make the front page of the Daily Post, which considered it "a
shocking incident" and lead with a picture of a photogenic kid looking
dejected.

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isidoreSeville
The simple fact of the matter is that we live in a litigious society. If the
City could be confident that no lawsuit against a lemonade stand (and the
City) would be heard by a judge, we wouldn't need this. But that isn't the
reality of the world.

~~~
blisterpeanuts
The city is mainly concerned about universal enforcement of its regulations
for what they think is the public good. In this case, obviously it's an
overzealous and misguided concern, but minus any guidance from the voters,
they'll just enforce the rules up the wazoo, as bureaucrats are prone to do.

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whatshisface
If we were too nice to kids, adults would start using them as park salsepeople
- imagine a "lemonade stand kit." I think the system of "police look the other
way" actually works really well here, as it prevents anyone from building
something too socially awful. Our positive sentiment would evaporate pretty
quickly if every visit to a public place entailed saying "no" to a constant
stream of girl scouts.

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DanBC
There was a Forbes article that got some discussion a few years ago. Perhaps
people are interested in that too? (161 comments)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3171665](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3171665)

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hasenj
I bet no one would bother following these regulations.

~~~
SwellJoe
I think what's more important is will police enforce those regulations? In my
experience, APD is pretty tough on food distribution; even giving away meals
to homeless folks is regulated pretty tightly, and in ways that are maybe
counter-productive to public welfare.

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
Ugh, when I was a teen I worked as a produce clerk in an ailing grocery chain
that had just been bought out by a regional competitor. One of the biggest
changes was that company policy forbade donations of old produce or meats, but
old baked goods were ok.

Basically, a bunch of rich shareholders figured it would be all-in-all better
to insulate their assets from lawsuits instead of helping feed the poor and
hungry.

Threw away a lot of good food that year...

~~~
semi-extrinsic
I thought usual practice in such cases was to say "sorry, rules say we can't
give this away, we have to throw it in the blue dumpster out back at 11pm on
thursday".

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
I wish they were that cool about it. Happy ending: a few investors bought out
some of the old stores and reinvigorated the old brand, and now things
are...well it's no Wegmans, but the store is certainly better than when I was
there. Don't know about disposal rules though...

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obelix150
You think Austin's bad check out the Hamptons cops. Seinfeld and his kids went
to the hoosegow.

[http://www.27east.com/mobile/article.cfm//Amagansett/119742/...](http://www.27east.com/mobile/article.cfm//Amagansett/119742/No-
Lemonade-For-You-Seinfeld-Lemonade-Stand-Shut-Down-in-East-Hampton-Village)

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blisterpeanuts
Is lemonade that dangerous? If they were selling meat, I could understand some
amount of concern about proper handling, refrigeration, etc. But lemonade? The
acid would kill most bacteria, and the most you have to worry about is
fermentation, which might kick in after 48 hours or so if warm enough.

~~~
DanBC
It's pretty easy to find examples of food poisoning caused by lemonade.

[http://www.foodpoisonjournal.com/foodborne-illness-
outbreaks...](http://www.foodpoisonjournal.com/foodborne-illness-
outbreaks/lemonade-source-of-norovirus-outbreak/)

This is "just" norovirus, but there are other more serious outbreaks.

~~~
blisterpeanuts
Actually, no, it's not that easy to find examples. Yes, your single example
came up in Google, but really, how many incidents of food poisoning by
lemonade stands occur each year?

Norovirus usually comes from contact with stool or vomit. I suppose that's
possible if a kid is _really_ dirty about their bathroom habits and so forth.

I worry a lot more about the thousands of cases of illness caused by bad
sanitation at restaurants around the country. Now there you'll find lots of
examples. Hep C occasionally is spread by a restaurant worker; a dozen people
may catch it before they track down the culprit.

~~~
DanBC
> but really, how many incidents of food poisoning by lemonade stands occur
> each year?

"They" would claim that's because the regulation is working, right?

The reason it doesn't show up more is because food poisoning is very common,
and so "person catches food poisoning" is not going to be reported anywhere
that Google will index.

> I suppose that's possible if a kid is really dirty about their bathroom
> habits and so forth.

No, and this is an important point. Most people do not wash their hands
properly, and norovirus is really easy to transmit. If anything it's amazing
that norovirus isn't more common.

(I agree with your points about actual restaurants btw.)

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6stringmerc
There's plenty of unincorporated area around Austin that motivated parents,
unwilling to comply with long-standing catch-all regulations, can map out as a
potential market. Then they can pack up the car, drive the kids out, set up
shop, and perform their business venture without the pesky administrative
oversight and potential fiscal penalties that go along with it. Granted, I
don't think cows buy a lot of lemonade, but that's a different issue.

~~~
SwellJoe
Cows don't naturally eat a lot of corn or soy, either, but capitalism has
solved that problem.

~~~
B1FF_PSUVM
"You won't believe this one drink that turns any cow into Kobe beef."

~~~
gonzo
Japan hates them

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gonzo
Austin sucks. Don't move here.

~~~
spacemanmatt
It's really hot, too.

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pdxgene
Whatever you do, don't try to start a lemonade-sharing service...

