Brickbat: No Entrepreneurs in This Neighborhood, Please

Corbin Potter, 9, and his sisters have operated a lemonade stand in their Toronto-area neighborhood for three years. They donate the money they raise to a local hospital. But this year one neighbor complained. Then she offered them $5 to shut down the stand. Finally, she called 911. Family members say the officer who responded was polite but insisted they close the stand because they didn't have a vendor's license. "By the end of it, (Corbin) thought I was going to jail, he was balling his eyes out," his mother said. A police spokeswoman acknowledges an officer responded to a call about the stand but denies he tried to shut it down.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

A police spokeswoman acknowledges an officer responded to a call about the stand but denies he tried to shut it down.

That would be like going to an adult video arcade and not unzipping your breeches. A cop isn't going to go to the trouble of responding to a complaint about a lemonade stand without getting his authority fix out of it. He knows what the call is about, so why would he even respond unless he was going to do something about it?

[Ted S.]

That's why you wear sweatpants to an adult video arcade.

[Fist of Etiquette]

That's why you wear sweatpants to an adult video arcade. Some people still regard dropping coin to stroke it as an event and dress accordingly.

[Live Free or Diet]

Now I know to call 911 when I see kids doing things I approve of.

[db]

"bawling"

[Some Chick from OH]

Please, PLEASE tell me the kid was actually BAWLING his eyes out!

[Matrix]

they were quoting directly from the article, which is not linked properly.

here

[Ted S.]

When you wrote "not linked properly", I was so hoping that the link was to 24/7.

[Rich]

A cranky, unidentified woman in an Oshawa neighbourhood called 911 and sicked police on a 9-year-old autistic boy in a bid to shut down his booming lemonade stand Monday.

"Sicked", eh?

And is *every* kid in the news these days "autistic", or does it just seem that way?

[sarcasmic]

Yes.

[RBS]

Pretty much.

[Rich]

I suppose we're all "on the spectrum".

[Ted S.]

If this were the US, they'd have a constitutionally-recognized right to know who was accusing them. That person should be named and made the focus of the story.

[Matrix]

and tarred, feathered, and run out of town

[Suthenboy]

For all the bitching done here about how cops behave, justified bitching, the root of the problem is really people like the neighbor who called 911 on the kid. Offered to give $5 to shut down? Then called 911?

People like this are fly-shit in the sugar.

[RBS]

She's probably on the HOA.

[Ted S.]

the root of the problem is really people like the neighbor who called 911 on the kid

If you see something, say something.

[KDN]

The number of Big Brother-ist commercials has been shooting up around here recently. I've been living "See Something, Say Something" for years, but they've recently added to it with the NTSB's "Over the Limit, Under Arrest" which has a decidedly Orwellian slant to its commercials and NJ Transit's "Text Against Terror" which literally encourages people to overreact to fidgety bums. The government wants to turn us into a nation of Narcs, and they're succeeding.

I'm willing to bet that the neighbor who called this in is literally the last person to move into the neighborhood. It's been my experience that they're the biggest busybodies since their trying to enforce the ideal that they talked themselves into before agreeing to pay 4x their annual salary for a residence.

[KDN]

Hey look, I managed to get on "they're" right and screw up another in the same sentence. Impressive.

[Ted S.]

Every time somebody in a police uniform boards the train, there should be texts saying that people see a suspected terrorist.

[DontShootMe]

Ian Anderson has suggestions things to do with the cranky neighbor when they identify her.

[DontShootMe]

ok, my last sentence needs some prepositions, or articles, or something. Add as needed and see what you come up with.

[Agammamon]

Text
Against
Terror
To
Law
Enforcement.

[Marshall Gill]

They donate the money they raise to a local hospital.

I hate this shit. Either they have the right to do what they are doing or they don't. The fact that they are giving the money to "charity" is a stupid emotional ploy.

Instead of having these children running a lemonade stand their parents should be having them read Wealth of Nations. Clearly the parents have not read it.

[Ted S.]

It's almost as bad as the "ten people were killed; three of them were children" death tolls you hear announced for accidents.

I always want to ask the newsreaderette why she doesn't care about the seven adults killed.

[Rhywun]

I was thinking something similar, along the lines of "yeah, right - they blow the money on video games and candy."

[Swiss Servator - past LTC(ret)]

OBEY, eh!

[Mr Whipple]

The link is Sugarfree'd.

[Ted S.]

Your comment is Matrixed. :-p

[Bean Counter]

I was waiting for a cab, ingesting large amounts of fat at McD's yesterday, when I noticed an empty table with a backpack under it and a phone charger on it. My first thought was to notify the manager that some poor schlub had left his stuff. I figured they could put it behind the counter so it wouldn't get stolen before its owner came back for it. Then I realized what year I'm living in. Not wanting to become the center of a Homeland Security probe and miss a day's work, I just ignored it like a good little drone. Fortunately, the guy came back from the bathroom and took his stuff.....or someone spotted a free backpack and stole it. Either way, I got to work on time.

[Rich]

However, since The Watchers now have imagery of you seeing-but-not-saying, you're now on The List as a Potential Terrorist.

[Bean Counter]

I went to a Tea Party rally in 2012...I'm sure I was already on the list.

[Killazontherun]

What a public nuisance; of course, by that I mean the officer, the busy body and the 911 'service'.

[AlmightyJB]

By neighbor, you mean stupid whore.

[Robert]

I think his mother said "bawling". If he'd been balling his eyes out, happier ending.

[Suthenboy]

You would, pedobot.