Police shut down kids' lemonade stand after complaint from neighbor

Jennifer Knowles wanted her children to learn a thing or two about business and interacting with customers but her plans came crashing down when police turned up at their lemonade stand to shut it down.

Fox 4 reported that the Colorado family put up a stall in Denver, Colorado on Memorial Day this year.

The mother wanted to teach her children responsibility and to lay the foundation for their futures. When they approached her to have a lemonade stand, she decided it was an opportunity to do just that.

She had made and sold lemonade during her summers as a child and knew it taught many valuable life lessons.

Her six-year-old brought out his toy cash register and was learning to interact with the customers and practicing his addition and subtraction skills.

The family had decided to donate all their proceeds to Compassion International. They picked a five-year-old boy in Indonesia to help provide basic necessities for, including clean water.

They set up their stand in a park right across the street from their house very close to an outdoor art show.

With a selling price of a dollar or two for their lemonade, the boys were doing good business. They were interacting well with people they had never met before in a business way.

However, they were shocked to see police just half an hour into their temporary business.

The officers came up to them to tell them that they had to shut shop as they did not have permits. The little ones were devastated. The younger one ran away after seeing the police, while the elder child cried because he was upset.

Knowles realized that somebody in the neighborhood could have called the police to complain. The mother could not believe someone could do that to the little children.

She suspected that a lemonade vendor nearby must have felt threatened by their temporary stall.

A spokesperson for Colorado’s permitting department said they do not generally go out to enforce its permitting rules against children.

However, if a call is made stating a lemonade stand blocking traffic or causing high levels of activity or noise that disrupts neighbors, the families are asked to shut them immediately.

Knowles wanted to make sure other parents are aware that there could be repercussions if they plan to have a lemonade stand this summer.

Read more on our Twitter account amomama_usa.