Kids Dig for Worms, Sell to Fishermen. Town Says Not So Fast: That's Illegal!
Better off indoors, eating gummy worms.


Clayton and Kristopher Cadieux, ages 8 and 10, dig up worms to sell to local fishermen (or whoever desires worms). They charge $2.50 for a dozen. Unfortunately, the CBC reports, the boys are now criminals in the eyes of Cornwall, a town in Ontario, Canada, because they set up their business on their front lawn, and even had the audacity to erect a sign:
…after a complaint from a neighbour, the brothers received a note from the city saying they were breaking a bylaw and had to shut down their business.
The mayor of Cornwall, Leslie O'Shaughnessy, explained that the bylaw requires all personal business sales be conducted within the home, without outdoor signage…. The city told the brothers to move their business inside their home, and to take down their signs on their front lawn.
As the mayor explained so thoughtfully:
"You are allowed to [sell worms] in the confines of your home, with no signage," he said. "In other words, if people want to pick up worms, they knock on your door, you hand them the worms, they hand you the money, they leave.
Though the crime comes with a $250/day fine—a price that would pay for a mayoral top hat full of worms—the dad says they are not backing down:
"We were livid. Like, God! How could this be? They're two little kids, eight and 10, selling worms," he said.
"They're not going to have pay the fine," Cadieux added. "I am! Because I'm the daddy, and it's daddy's house. But I'm willing to do that for my kids."
Kristopher [age 10] said the worm enterprise only brought in about $34 a month last summer, and he doesn't understand why he and his brother are being told they can't sell worms from their front lawn.
"I didn't feel too good about that," he said. "I thought at least we're doing something. Most of my friends play video games. I'm building responsibilities."
No, my little miscreant: You are building a rap sheet. Better to go inside and sit down on the couch for the rest of the summer with a nice big bag of gummy worms. You can pretend you caught them yourself.
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KIDS ARE TOO FAT! THEY NEED TO MOVE MORE!!
KIDS ARE IN DANGER EVERY SECOND THEY"RE OUTDOORS! THEY NEED TO BE INSIDE MORE!
Well, when being outside is a criminal offense, I agree with the latter.
Just repeating the progressive + soccer mom contradictory mantras.
+1 oversized hamster wheel?
So you held down the shift key instead of hitting caps lock. I like your style.
If you ever needed a more direct, obvious indicator of a sociopath, bullying children who are harming no one and just trying to make a buck is pretty much a first rate sign. And what does the entire government seem to be composed of at this point?
It's like government has become the holding pen for our most sociopathic sociopaths. That's not good.
It's like government has become the holding pen for our most sociopathic sociopaths. That's not good
It isn't like that, it's exactly that.
I know. And it really isn't good. The violent sociopaths are all collecting in one place. That's going to have some really bad results, or I'll eat my hat.
Children who are allowed to skirt the rules grow up to be adults who don't know their place.
"CornwallSucks.com -- Your Online Worm Emporium!"
Our neighbors to the north are having another libertarian moment.
City councillor Justin Towndale said he thinks the bylaw has gone too far and he intends to raise the issue at the next council meeting.
"The bylaw is there to prevent businesses in residential areas and also stop illegal businesses," he said. "But it's gone too far, because it's got kids caught up in its web. And that wasn't how it was intended to function."
How would a bylaw forbidding yard signs would "stop illegal businesses?" Or is this a-hole just making shit up.
Bullshit. It is exactly how it was "intended to function". Otherwise the government apparatchik would have laughed the busybody neighbor off the phone.
People are earning money without asking permission and obeying orders? They must be stopped!
At least they are allowed to seel worms out of their house.
If they living in America they would probably be smacked with a zoning ordinance and a health code violation.
Plus, you know, I doubt those kids are being supervised by their parents while they are doing their worm digging. They could be abducted by a perveted fisherman.
Child neglect!
If i were those kids (or even their dad), the neighbor who complained would never go another night without a flaming bag of poo on their porch.
^This.
What kind of crap neighbor calls the cops on kids selling worms?
Seems like an opportunity for flaming poo bags. Or, just let the dog take its daily on the neighbor's lawn and cut out the middle man.
For the flaming poo bag to be fully effective, it needs to be human poo.
Instead of worrying about worms sold by kids, maybe His Honor should worry about the worm in Mark 9:44.
(note: this is rhetorical hyperbole, not incitement in any way, shape or form, nor am I singling out anyone based on race, creed, etc. in violation of Canadian "Human Rights" law. I am simply asking the mayor to mind his own [expletive deleted] business)
The fable of the worm and the woodchipper?
/not necessarily in that order
Anybody else think they should change the name of that town to Cornhole?
Aye.
?after a complaint from a neighbour
Didn't read past. Western liberal democracies are now filled with creepy informants and agents of the state. They're called neighbors.
I stopped reading there, too. Who puts an extra u in the word neighbor?
Extra? Neighbor has exactly as many Us as req'd.
I'm betting the number of "complaints" by "neighbors" would drop 90% if people were required to file them under their own names, and under oath, with no confidentiality, privacy, or anything else that would prevent the victim of their complaint from knowing who they are.
If the internets have taught us anything, it would be that people are much bigger assholes when they are assured of anonymity.
Totally. Look at NutraSweet.
I stopped pooping in the yard all on my own, asswiper.
It took you forty years to stop!!!
"I've changed. People change. Changes... I'm not the same Jerri Blank who informed on those blind orphans. I'm not the same Jerri Blank who revealed the hiding place of those Guatemalans... such as yourself. And I'm not the same Jerri Blank who took a crap in the Fleishmanns' holly bushes... last night."
It's my goddamn property, cosmofagian!
"If you don't wanna see it, don't look!"
I had an anonymous complaint against me. I went door to door til I found out who had the problem. I haven't received anymore letters.
You really are a Florida Man.
It was a crazy retiree from NY or NJ. Complained that my dogs woke her up at the crack of 0800. She has nothing better to do than complain, but now that she knows I know where she lives, she stopped complaining.
I would have just looked at the return address.
It came from the HOA. Your neighbors blah blah...
Bitches and HOAs?
Bros first?
No, the state is an agent of them. I strongly doubt the complainer was motivated by the ordinance. Rather, they had something against this person & looked around for a way they could make trouble for them.
Convenient they have rules which cover... well, pretty much everything. Without the rules, the neighbor would just have to suck it up!
In the good ole days they would have settled it with a fistfight in the driveway.
Fistfight?
This is AMERICA. That's what the Second Amendment is for.
Goddamn busybodies
There was a book out relatively recently that examined the Gestapo and concluded it had far too few agents to be efficient except that neighbors would curry favor by informing on their neighbors for real or imagined slights against the Third Reich.
I think it's deeper than that. Progs hate enterprise, self-reliance, entrepreneurship, etc. These kids just might develop a work ethic and not become dependent on government. Have you ever read the book "Help! Mom, there are Liberals under my bed"?
When taking a flight from SFO across country, I was sitting next to a 4th grade kid and his mom. I could tell she was one of the rich smug leftists, and she wasn't talking to me at all so I talked with her kid instead. He was saying how he made these crafts things and when he brought them to school, everyone wanted one. I encouraged him by saying it looked neat, and he should make extra and sell them at school to his friends to make some money and then everyone could have them. I told him how in 8th grade we had an entrepreneurial fair and it was a lot of fun. He seemed upbeat and said he should try making more to sell them.
I'll never forget the fucking condescending laugh / chuckle his bitch mom gave. Floored me. Like hahaha why would you waste your time doing that? That's not something WE do over here.... not let me go back to our gated community. The kid seemed to have a good attitude and has the spirit, but his smug parents might have crushed that.
Sounds like this job wasn't...
*pulls out the Fist sunglasses*
Shovel ready.
These kids aren't going to...
[dons sunglasses]
...worm their way out of this one.
Goddammit.
Yeah.
I think you mean... YYEEEEAAAAAHHHH
I hope the kids will manage to...
*dons sunglasses*
...worm their way out of this one.
It's ok, we will
*dons sunglasses*
Let you off the hook this time.
it's a
wait for it....
dirty business.
*narrows gaze* at the whole bloody lot of you!
You know, Caruso actually gave a good performance once. In Session 9. Why can't he do that again?
I liked Caruso best when Christopher Walken shot him in the face with a shotgun in "The King Of New York." That was a good role, too...
Oh man, I haven't watched that in ages. It's an Abel Ferrara film. He also did Bad Lieutenant and Ms. 45.
"King of NY" is the total SHIT, dude. Watch it. check out the soundtrack laden with Schoolly D tracks - take ya right back to the 80's!
"I never killed anyone... that didn't deserve it"
That is some fucking CLASSIC Walken right there. And the young "Larry" Fishburne?
Maybe Larry Fishburne at his best.
(Yes, you kids, even better than when he got fat and played Morpheus.)
Maybe not better than him as Furious Stiles in Boyz in the Hood.
Sounds like the mayor's no chum...
[puts on sunglasses]
..to these kids' bucket.
These kids were taken
[dons sunglasses]
hook, line and sinker.
Can you dig it? Caaaan youuuuuuuuuuuuu dig iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit?!
the city should have fined the neighbor for putting a virtual sign in his own yard that says "asshole"
And then he should have asked the hard questions and posted them on YouTube.
Better yet, the city should require the neighbor to register as an asshole.
The asshole industry is an unregulated wild west.
You know what else is a sure sign of being an asshole? SF'ing links.
Damn. I am just not having a very good afternoon.
PWN'D
Huh. We always stayed in Cornwall for the North American Pipe Band Championship, which, coincidentally, was held this past weekend (78th Frasers won this year, in case you were wondering - contest is actually in nearby Maxville, which is a little podunk town with no hotels, unlike Cornwall, which is a little podunk town WITH hotels).
Nice little town.
Being Canada, I'm not surprised they're every bit as statist as towns here in the US. I'll know not to dig for worms if/when I join a Canadian pipe band again and stay in Cornwall for the North Am Championship.
Thanks for the warning!
I don't think there's anything special about Cornwall - I could see this happening in any town in the US, too.
I just wanted to make a bagpiping reference.
Admirable. I love the bagpipes.
+1 Scotland the Brave
It's always after some busybody shithead complains. How hard is it to mind your own fucking business? Jesus titty-fucking Christ.
Busybody shitheads are a valuable tool of government. And recruitment is so successful that advertising specifically for 'busybody shitheads wanted' isn't even necessary!
The question every liberty-minded person has.
My brother was about 19, home on leave from the Army, and was drinking a beer on his front steps. Neighbor called cops, etc. etc. $100 fine (lot of money circa 1968). So he went out front every day and drank a Coke out of a beer can. Cops finally stopped coming around after three or four false alarms. Don't know what they told the neighbor. Today, he'd probably be shot for disturbing the cops' peace, resisting arrest, and who knows what all.
Good grief, where the fuck is that you can't drink a beer on your porch? I do it all the time and I live in the people's republic of murlan.
gasp!
if young hooligans are allowed to get away with such things, what next?
this is a gateway to hard stuff like lemonade stands.
Today it's worms, tomorrow it's lemonade, if you don't nip that shit in the bud they might grow up to be entrepreneurs and *gasp* successful businessmen! Why, they might even end up starting a big EVUL KKKOCHPORSHUN some day! We're saving their soul by crushing their dreams. /progtard
We need a war on lemonade stands.
"We were livid. Like, God! How could this be? They're two little kids, eight and 10, selling worms,"
It's not really much better to me when it is applied to adults. And it would be. Thugs gotta thug.
You can't just have people going around and digging up worms and selling them whenever they like. There would be anarchy.
One wonders, did any of the worms have a name and were they beloved?
Those boys have no respect! They know the mayor has three daughters. That's his town! Those boys should show him some respect. They should let him wet his beak a little. He doesn't want a lot. Just enough to wet his beak.
Someone needs to stand up for the rights of budybodies, elderly curmudgeoms, and asshole neighbors. If I don't want to listen to a bunch of screeching little hooligans hocking fish bait across the street from me, I shouldn't have to. Those little punks can't be up to any good.
I suppose it's too late to make my "Diet of Worms" joke?
Yeah, by 500 years, give or take. 😉
"You are allowed to [sell worms] in the confines of your home, with no signage," he said. "In other words, if people want to pick up worms, they knock on your door, you hand them the worms, they hand you the money, they leave."
Replace "worms" with "weed", and what's the diff? Seriously, can we face the hipocracy?
It's a slippery slope. First, it's a lemonade stand, then a trailer parked at the curb with a flat tire and a hand-scrawled sign offering "full body masages" (sic), then some hippie with a learning disorder and a turban beheads the mail carrier and posts it on YouTube, then the SoCal grid goes down, Hoover Dam busts a gut and Putin and the Iranians invade eastern Europe. These things spiral out of control within hours, minutes even. Eternal vigilance is needed...always.