If you thought a neighborhood lemonade stand — run by a scrappy kid trying to make a few bucks in the sweltering heat — was an innocent endeavor, you'd be mistaken.
Police in Texas shut down the lemonade stand of sisters Andria and Zoey Green, who were hoping to earn enough money to pay for a trip to area waterpark Splash Kingdom for their dad on Father's Day [1].
Why weren't they allowed to sell refreshing $.50 cups of lemonade? Because they were operating without a permit. Just an hour after they opened for business, officers approached the girls, telling them to close up shop. They thankfully agreed to waive the fee of $150.
As hard as it is to believe, Texas law states that the sale of food that requires temperature control to prevent spoiling is illegal without a proper permit from the city. The $1 bags of kettle popcorn were approved, but the lemonade — because of the potential to grow bacteria — wasn't.
Because the girls' mother, Sandi Evans, said on Facebook [2] that it will "take weeks" to get the proper permit, they've decided to work around the law with a clever loophole: Andria and Zoey will be serving free lemonade but will accept donations.
"They will 'work' and earn their way," Evans said. "They can be given 'tips' but we can not 'sell' you lemonade."
We have a feeling that thanks to their business savvy, they'll be able to take their dad to Splash Kingdom several times over.