Texas kids told to close up lemonade stand

The Overton, Texas, police informed sisters Andria and Zoey Green that they needed a permit to sell their lemonade.

“We were there for about an hour and the police department came, a code enforcement officer and the chief, she called me to the side and said we needed a permit,” [mom] Sandi Evans said.

Andria, 8, and Zoey, 7, started the lemonade stand with the intention of raising the $105 they need to take their father to Splash Kingdom for Father’s Day.

“It is a lemonade stand, but they also have a permit that they are required to get,” Overton Police Chief Clyde Carter said.

The sisters must get a peddlers permit, which allows vendors to do business on the street, although the city decided to waive the $150 fee that is usually attached to that permit.

“It’s illegal to sell lemonade without a permit,” Carter said. “But we didn’t tell them to shut down, we just asked them to get a permit.”

When Evans tried to get the appropriate permit at City Hall, she found that the lemonade stand would have to be licensed by the Rusk County Health Department. Instead of jumping through all of the hoops required to get the permit, the girls have decided to reopen the stand and simply ask for donations in lieu of actually selling the lemonade.

Carter confirmed that asking for donations isn’t illegal.

After the news about their abrupt shutdown spread, the sisters experienced an outpouring of support in the form of $200 in donations, two sets of free passes to the amusement park, and promises to come to their reopened lemonade stand.

“We do have so many positives coming out of this, and since I don’t feel right keeping the money now that they got their dad’s gift for free, we’re going to give away the extra tickets and set up scholarships with the donations they’ve collected,” Evans said.

The family is planning on donating the money to a local high school senior who wants to major in business management.