If there was one poster case for governmental regulatory overreach, this would be the one. The city of Tulare, California decided to shut down a lemonade stand run by an eight-year-old girl. Why? Because she didn’t have a business license.

Eight-year-old Daniela Earnest has made lemonade out of lemons in more ways than one this week.

Hoping to raise money for a family trip to Disneyland, the Tulare girl opened a lemonade stand Monday. But because Daniela didn’t have a business license, the city of Tulare shut it down the same day…

The story began Monday morning when Daniela and her stepmother, Marisa Earnest, set up shop at Cartmill Avenue and Hillman Street in north Tulare. The lemonade was freshly squeezed and priced at $2 for a 32-ounce plastic cup.

Richard Garcia, a Tulare code enforcement officer, happened to be at the same intersection to remove illegal signs left behind by someone selling tetherball poles.

So far, this sounds like a skit from Saturday Night Live. Anyhoo…

Garcia told Daniela and her stepmother that their lemonade stand — on the northwest corner of the busy intersection — was not safe, and also that they needed a business license to sell lemonade.

He helped the pair load their ice chest and equipment into their car and then called city planners to find out where they could relocate.

“He wasn’t out there on lemonade patrol,” said Frank Furtaw, Tulare’s code enforcement manager. Garcia was merely applying the city’s code enforcement laws equitably, Furtaw said.

Glad to see that every other issue in the city has been solved, all of the crime stopped. Clearly that makes time for taxpayer-funded code enforcers to shut down lemonade stands run by eight-year-old girls.

Vice Mayor Philip Vandegrift said a compromise — possibly asking lemonade stand operators to pay a nominal fee or establishing a license fee waiver for children under a certain age — could be the outcome of Daniela’s experience.

However, the city needs to enforce vendor laws, Vandegrift said, “otherwise we’ll have people on every corner.”

Is this a fricking joke? We’re talking about an eight-year-old selling little cups of lemonade from a make-shift stand on the street corner. Shutting down little stands run by little children should be at the very bottom of the list of priorities.

While the nation should be encouraging entrepreneurial activity from an early age, local governments are busy enforcing business codes against eight-year-olds with their lemonade stands. The Onion couldn’t have written a better parody. Unfortunately, this story is all too real.

Via Hot Air Headlines.