7-, 4-year old illegally sell pop a fair

[Ravenbomb 0]

I suck at sports, but I was great at dodgeball. I had a strategy. Stay away from the jocks when they do their little trash talking or whatever the crap it's supposed to be called. Then, when the game starts, go to the corner of your side. The jocks will be eliminating each other the whole game. One time I was the last person left on my team because of this.

[The Czech Republic 0]

My only skill in dodgeball was being the guy who made the shots to bring everybody back in. Otherwise, I was useless. I was like the Special Teams of elementary-school dodgeball. Oh well, Capture The Flag > Dodgeball.

[Guest Choken One]

Capture the flag is bullshit unless you were allowed to tackle...

 

I would be like Goldberg man...I just stand there and hiss and shit and when some idiot punk went for it...I just speared the unholy fuck outta him...Problem was? People figured it out and just sent like three people at once...leaving two others for The girl...(the coach made us have Mixed Defenders)...We'd always put that fat girl there..

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

I suck at sports, but I was great at dodgeball. I had a strategy. Stay away from the jocks when they do their little trash talking or whatever the crap it's supposed to be called. Then, when the game starts, go to the corner of your side. The jocks will be eliminating each other the whole game. One time I was the last person left on my team because of this.

Yeah, and these would be the same people bitching about people like me/you still in the game while they were sitting on the sidelines...

[Guest Ram]

Dodgeball was the best game ever.

 

I usually grabbed a ball in the beginning tustle (8-10 balls would be laid out in the center, you'd have to run from opposite walls to grab one), and then ran back to miss the opening shots. Generally, 5-6 people would ge teliminated in the opening, and the craziness of it all would slow down. Then I could go all Terminator and shit and just frickin' eliminate everybody and catch all the balls heading my way.

 

Is there a professional dodgeball league? I'd so do that. I wonder if the players have groupies..

[Lil' Bitch 0]

Mikaela Ziegler, 7, and her 4-year-old sister, Annika, were selling refreshments Wednesday afternoon near the State Fairgrounds when a woman approached them. But she wasn't there to buy.

 

"She said, 'You can't sell pop unless you have a license,' "

 

They're just kids. That woman, what a bitch.

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

Like all of these stories, the crisis is resolved...

 

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/6652565.htm

 

When 7-year-old Mikaela Ziegler's teacher asks her what she did over summer break, she can say she fought City Hall and won.

 

The Expo Elementary second-grader reopened her pop stand Friday after St. Paul city officials — under a barrage of angry phone calls and media attention — changed their minds about enforcing licensing requirements that had put Mikaela and her sister Annika, 4, out of business.

 

On Wednesday, an inspector from the city's License, Inspections and Environmental Protection (LIEP) Office had told the girls they would have to close the cold-drink business they set up on a play table on their front sidewalk on Como Avenue, several blocks from the Minnesota State Fair.

 

But after the girls' business woes garnered local and national media attention, followed by an onslaught of phone calls to Mayor Randy Kelly's office from incredulous citizens, the city backed off.

 

The mayor's "reaction was, and I quote, 'Leave the little girls alone,' " said Howard Orenstein, senior policy adviser to Kelly.

 

"LIEP was doing its job. But there's a common sense line that has to be drawn," he said, adding that the city will be reviewing and seeking clarification of the licensing rules as they apply to children's refreshment stands. City officials said they had been cracking down in response to complaints about unlicensed businesses in the neighborhood around the Fair.

 

Along with his staff, City Council Member Jay Benanav, who represents the area and offered to pay for the girls' license, fielded a steady of stream of calls from citizens wondering if this was the best use of resources for a city facing a $19.6 million budget shortfall.

 

"I'm embarrassed. Here we are busting a 7-year-old girl when we have some more important things to deal with," said Benanav, a frequent mayoral critic who narrowly lost to Kelly in the 2001 election.

 

By the time the girls reached Benanav's office about 10 a.m. Friday to go get the permit, about a dozen citizens and businesses had pledged $145 to the "Mikaela & Annika Defense Fund," with promises from about a dozen others yet to be calculated.

 

The money was to be used to pay for the girls' $60 pop stand license and a $25 late fee and for the licenses of any other kids put out of business by St. Paul inspectors.

 

Citizens, expressing outrage with the city action, said they'd help:

 

• A manufacturer of banners offered signs to improve the stand's visibility.

 

• The Midway Chamber of Commerce wanted to support the little entrepreneurs with licensing fees.

 

The incident drew national attention, too, with NBC's "Today" show and ABC News in New York trying to reach the Ziegler sisters. Reports of the incident also were featured at the top of the national "Drudge Report" Web site.

 

The attention was a bit too much for Mikaela, according her father, Richard Ziegler, an assistant professor of pediatric neuropsychology at the University of Minnesota. "My daughter said this is how a little thing becomes a big thing," he said.

 

When Mikaela's parents decided to complain about the licensing requirement, "My mother-in-law said, 'Why are you bothering? You can't fight City Hall,' " said Lisa Rogers, the girls' mother.

 

"Well, we can make a lot of noise. We can tell them when we think they're doing something wrong."

 

Apparently, scores of people agreed that the city was on the wrong side of this issue.

 

"I think it's a travesty," said Joe Furth, owner of Eclipse Records, who pledged money for the girls' license. "They weren't doing it for a major payday. They weren't trying to put together a college fund. It's a service."

 

Having battled with the city to change an ordinance that would allow live performances at his music store, Furth said he was not surprised that the city would tell two little girls to "cease and desist."

 

By midmorning, city officials had formally reassessed:

 

"We are not going to require these children to have a license," said Janeen E. Rosas, LIEP director. "Public consensus is not completely behind the ordinance."

 

City officials cited health hazards of unlicensed vendors handling consumables as a reason for the strict enforcement of the ordinance, which has been in place at least 23 years.

 

For the time being, children can sell refreshments, but officials want to work with the City Council to clarify the rules on what inspectors are to enforce.

 

The pop stand enforcement raised questions about other vending activities in the neighborhood, such as regulations on neighbors selling lawn space for parking.

 

But the city's Legislative Code specifically addresses the annual issue of State Fair parking, allowing residents to sell front-yard spaces if adjoining neighbors approve in writing.

 

"By city ordinance, there is a special overlay district in the zoning code that allows front- and side-yard parking on properties near the Fairgrounds," Rosas said. "They don't need licenses, unless they are storing or parking 10 or more vehicles on an annual basis."

 

Former LIEP director Roger Curtis said Friday that his department had an unwritten understanding about Fair-time pop and lemonade stands when he was there.

 

"We'd sit down before the Fair, and I'd say to my people, 'Don't bother the kids. I don't want anyone to ever come to me with a complaint about two kids with a pop stand,' " Curtis said. "Of course, if somebody pulls up next to a licensed vendor with a trailer full of stuff, we'd go after them. It's just takes a little common sense."

 

As the girls were leaving the LIEP office, Jane Prince, Benanav's legislative aide, told the girls: "You've made it possible for children all over the city to sell lemonade without shutting down."

 

"How's that?" Richard Ziegler asked his daughters. "Pretty powerful."

 

But Annika had other pressing issues than effecting change at City Hall: "Daddy, now will you buy me a snack?"

[Firestarter 0]

Good show.