The town of Burns Harbor, Ind., is being justifiably criticized for the law it enacted earlier this summer requiring non-residents to get fingerprinted, undero a criminal background check and get a $100 permit before they're allowed to make or sell anything in town, whether on the street, door-to-door or in a brick-and-mortar business:
The town council is abusing its authority. Alas, theirs is a common attitude. The normal mindset among U.S. officials is that prior permission should be required to sell legal goods to a willing buyer. Kids selling lemonade on the street are shut down. A Missouri man has been fined $90,000 for selling rabbits (he made about $200). In Illinois, an artisan ice cream maker is being shut down for lack of a dairy permit. Manuel Winn was arrested, handcuffed, and booked for selling magazines door-to-door without a permit. A Maryland mother of three was arrested for selling $2 phone cards without a license. Lots of municipalities are going after food trucks. A group of Louisiana monks had to go to court to win the right to sell simple wooden caskets to consumers.
If you read enough of these stories, you'll see the targeted entrepreneurs say the same thing again and again: I just had a good idea and started a business. It never occurred to me that I needed permission. And, of course, other would be entrepreneurs don't ever get started because they're too intimidated to assess and grapple with the bureaucratic hurdles. Or else the regulations are written in a way that excludes from commerce folks who are operating at a very small scale.
Such lunacy is especically difficult to accept in the kind of tough economic environment we face today. But it's wrong any time. Since the American way is to encourage entrepreneurial enterprise for those facing setbacks, you could eve
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It also sounds like they're targeting the sort of people who can't afford a high-powered lawyer to effectively fight back. Picking on people who can't fight back is the hallmark of a bully.
This is dumb. I guess Girl Scout cookies will not be available inside the city limits nor will the Boy Scouts be selling popcorn. Schools like Carroll, Maplecreek, Homestead, etc will not be allowed to do any kind of fund raising.
I do not have the time, but did the city require existing businesses to get fingerprinted and pay $100?
The ice cream manufacturer is in a slightly different category than the others. She was mixing fresh strawberries with cream, pasteurized before she got it, to make ice cream. Given what strawberries are normally fertilized with, the possibility of e.coli is pretty significant; either the strawberries ought to be treated or else the ice cream after adding the strawberries.
Otherwise, I'd have to agree. The licensing for businesses was a lot simpler when I was 17 and starting out than it was when I was 30, which was a lot simpler than it is now - and the economy suffers from this damping of the entrepreneural spirit.
Also, we no longer get cocaine in our cola drinks. I feel cheated.