Defending the Indefensible: shutting down kids' Lemonade Stands

Here's a scenario. Little Chuck starts a lemonade stand in front of his house. The police shut it down a day later. Little Chuck is devastated. The police claim he doesn't have a license and so can't operate. He just wanted to participate in the American Dream of entrepreneurship. What could be so wrong with that?

Here's a competing scenario. Old lady Alice bought a 25 cent cup of lemonade from Little Chuck. She has peanut allergies. Due to the fact that Chuck's favorite food is peanuts, he managed to contaminate the juice with said peanuts. It was just a small dusting, but now Old Lady Alice is in the hospital, to great personal and societal expense. What recourse does Old Lady Alice have in this situation? Little Chuck failed to perform basic food safety procedures, namely washing his hands before preparation. If the police had stopped Chuck from operating his stand, this wouldn't have happened. 

Which leads us to a problem: who is right? Should Little Chuck be able to operate his stand, while putting some members of society in danger, no matter how small? Well, yes and no. Here I propose a solution to the problem. There are societal limits in place that are designed to protect the consumer and the worker. While these limitations can be overly draconian in some places and corrupt in others, their intentions are usually to protect. Each individual case, then, must be judged appropriately. In this case, I believe that the easiest way to solve the problem would be to open up applications for a "junior entrepreneurship permit application." It would be both a permit program and an educational course to teach children about workplace and market safety. At the end of the course, minors and those who want to sell food products and other things from their front lawn would: A) know the procedures and attempt to follow them and B) allow recourse for personal injury caused by their business, through a special insurance plan. 

The whole point of this article is to satisfy my own thoughts about a story I heard, where people were angry that the police and city shut down a kid's lemonade stand. I remember that the police were nice in this case and got the kid a permit, but I believe there are many other cases that don't end so well. 

Permits can be used to gatekeep a certain profession or activity, and that is usually not a good thing. However, some permits need to be in place to prevent accidents from happening, and more importantly, give those affected by accidents recourse, usually in the form of mandatory insurance.

My final thought is that most clickbait or "brick bat" stories have a much deeper component to them than what is represented in media. In this case, a little bit of thought could have saved a whole lot of outrage.