All the Government You Can Pay For

If you are interested, the title comes from a warning I once heard from a county commissioner who told his constituents, "Be careful; we'll give you all the government you can pay for." That is not entirely true. Sometimes, you get more government than you asked or paid for. 

In Norwood, Mass., 12-year-old Danny Doherty had a great idea. He would set up a stand in his yard and sell homemade ice cream. He planned to donate half of his earnings to his brother's hockey team, the Boston Bears Club. The team is made up of special needs kids, and Danny's brother is autistic. 

According to Fox News, "Tree Street Treats," with its own logo and Instagram account, had been in business for about a week. Danny had pulled in $124 selling vanilla, shaved chocolate, cannoli, and New England fluffernutter. He donated $62 to his brother's hockey team. 

Then the inevitable occurred. 

It may have been a neighborhood buttinsky who thought that everyone else's business was their business, or it may have been an eagle-eyed city employee who saw that someone was peddling clandestine ice cream to a vulnerable and unsuspecting public. Danny's mother, Nancy, received a cease-and-desist letter from Norwood Health Department, which read in part:

The Norwood Health Department has received a complaint that you are making and selling scooped ice cream and cookies at your residential property.

The Massachusetts Food Code (105CMR. 590) does not allow for the sale of ice cream made in the home. Please desist in these activities.

So that was the end of Tree Street Treats. Nancy, a widow, did not want to throw the ice cream away, and she and her kids could not eat it all themselves. In the end, they gave it away to family and friends with a request for a donation to the Boston Bears Club. 

While the town of Norwood decided to act like a flock of diarrhetic pigeons in a statue factory, the people of Norwood were more compassionate and sensible. Once word got out, the Dohertys sold out of ice cream in ten minutes and raised $1,000. All told, the effort brought in $7,500 for the team. Three local ice cream shops decided to have fundraisers of their own for the effort. 

I have seen iterations of this before. When I was on the radio, a young lady walked into my office with a flyer about a bake sale to raise funds for her nephew's heart surgery, asking if I would spread the word. We made sure to talk it up on the air for a week or so, and on the day of the bake sale, I went down to the park. I was amazed at the number of cars, trucks, welding trucks, and oil field vehicles filled with people who wanted to buy backed goods to help pay for the boy's surgery. 

And then, from across the park came one of the health inspectors. He was strutting along like freaking Marshal Matt Dillon, headed for the Longbranch Saloon. He sashayed up to the table and made quite a show of affixing a warning sign so that all and sundry knew that the baked goods were made in someone's home kitchen and not in an inspected and approved food preparation facility. 

I believe there was also a cautionary statement about the possibility of contracting a food-borne illness. Maybe radiation poisoning, I don't know. At that point, I wasn't taking him seriously. I have seen those signs or ones similar to them at most bake sales and fundraisers I have attended.

Unlike the government, the American people are not so obtuse. Well, about 50% of us are not obtuse, but that is another column altogether. We know that when we buy a snow cone, cookie, brownie, glass of Kool-Aid, lemonade, or whatever from some kid on the street, it was made in their house or maybe even right there in the yard. We are not expecting restaurant-quality food. The lemonade may be warm, and it might even have a gnat in it. We don't care. We're buying this stuff because little kids with lemonade stands are cute and because we want to support the entrepreneurial spirit.

So why did the town of Norwood decide to flex on a 12-year-old kid? Because it could. Because somebody in this blue-state town wanted to feel officious and powerful and let this family know that no one escapes the baleful eye of the typical North American Bureaucrat.