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13 Year-Old Kid’s Hot Dog Cart Shut Down
I know this is going to be unpopular, but I agree with the shutting down of the cart. This isn’t a little girl opening a lemonade stand in her front yard. This was someone exploiting the foot traffic provided by the merchants of the area who pay all the property taxes and area upkeep. Letting one person slide is not right. Soon the entire place would be crawling with carpet-bagging food merchants.
And the kid being 13 has nothing to do with this. Don’t go full progtard and be swayed by your emotions. The city was right to do what they did.
The Daily Caller readers don’t see it that way. They are siding with the kid.
Before opening up shop, Johnson said, they stopped by city hall, just across the street from the cart’s location, to ask if they needed a permit to sell food. His mother explained that a woman at city hall told her no permit was necessary.
The business was short-lived and the city of Holland shut down the stand 10 minutes after it opened. Zoning officials cited laws that prohibit food carts in the commercial district that are not connected to downtown brick and mortar restaurants.
Mayor Kurt Dykstra turned down the family’s appeal to city council last week, saying that it was to protect downtown restaurant owners who had asked that the “success of the downtown district not be infringed upon by those who don’t share in the costs of maintaining the attractiveness of that space.”
In a statement, the city explains:
The downtown business owners annually pay substantial assessments (often reaching into the thousands of dollars) for improvement and maintenance of the free parking lots, amenities and events, and “snowmelt” to keep the downtown alive and well – and these assessments are on top of their regular property taxes.
With that in mind, it is understandable that these businesses, historically at least, have been reluctant to allow mobile vendors into the downtown area to benefit from the environment the brick and mortar businesses have created, compete with them for customers, but not contribute to the substantial capital and operational costs of the downtown.
The kid was free to move his hot dog cart to another location. When this was pointed out by one reader another reader said, “ya, but he needs to set up the cart where all the customers are, not just anywhere.”
Exactly. And if this person thought a minute about what they just wrote they’d see why they are wrong.
Corky
August 10th, 2012
Have to agree with you on this Fur–I thought I was such a hard hearted person when I saw all those comments.
Mark Zist
August 10th, 2012
He should be allowed to have a hot dog stand. After all, those business owners didn’t build that. Amirite?
Moe Tom
August 10th, 2012
You know for many years I used to lunch with a Hot Dog with mustard krout at various site in upper Manhattan until one night we chased a mugger into a building, down the stairs, into a maze of compartments. We never got the prick but I saw crates of hot dogs, weiners, on skids, with the dogs leaking out of the cartons and rats running rampant.
I never eat from a street vender again. That was around 1972.
Immortal Fish
August 10th, 2012
The part everyone is missing in this story is how “the alleged perpetrators” attempted a good faith effort to comply with the law well before they made investment.
“Before opening up shop, Johnson said, they stopped by city hall, just across the street from the cart’s location, to ask if they needed a permit to sell food. His mother explained that a woman at city hall told her no permit was necessary”
There are several MA state horror stories how residents tried to comply with the mandatory state health insurance policy to ill affect. This story reminds me of those stories.
True, it’s feasible one person could misinterpret local law and advise applicants poorly. Or, one could use this case to underscore the ignorant/counterproductive nature of ever widening bureaucracy.
More laws means less liberty. Pluck ‘em in the ear, Stan!
OBAMA ATE CLAUDIA'S CRITTERS?
August 10th, 2012
That kid didn’t build that. Those other businesses made that traffic happen.
Katechon
August 10th, 2012
One thing I love about Thailand is that you have cart food everywhere.
Chuck U Farley
August 10th, 2012
If Restaurant A, Restaurant C and Restaurant B were to establish their businesses near one another, for the mutual benefit of increased commercial traffic within their respective establishments, then, as long as they pay fair-market value for their property, that should be their right. It should also be their right to purchase, and by mutual agreement to use a portion of the profits to maintain a common area for the mutual benefit of their respective establishments. The Restaurateurs would establish a ‘Guild’ so to speak. The said purchase of common area, hopefully to create greater clientele for the mutual benefit of A, B & C.
If ‘Hot Dog Cart Kid’ comes along and wants to establish his business in the common area, he would have to pay a fee to the Guild, or move to another location outside the Guild’s common area. Simple, basic human capital interactions.
The root of the problem lies with the intrusion of hand of government. If businesses were not ‘coerced’ to pay taxes to ‘allow’ them special ‘zoning’ privileges, then this situation would work itself out through basic human capital interactions.
The government, any government, comes along and offers commerce protection. The government says to commerce, “If you want to do business within the realm of my protection you must follow these specific rules and pay these specific fees.” By ‘zoning’ the government sets up special areas of privilege depending on ability to pay the government.
Government is nothing more than a ‘middle man’ that ‘regulates’ commerce. Any government that ‘regulates’, ‘zones’, etc. does nothing more than stifle the free-flow of interactive human commercial interactions. In reality, nothing more than the Mafia has been doing since before the days of the Caesars.
That is also why those governments that govern the least, govern the best.
The Saw
August 10th, 2012
Immortal Fish said what I was going to say. Also the owner of the store had given the kid permission to use his store front.
The city should have done their job and said no from the get go.
Clyde
August 10th, 2012
Something smells and it’s not spoiled weenies & kraut. The video below is a local TV news report about the kid, mom & steppop, et al.
First thing I wondered is “Where did the kid get all the nickels and dimes he ‘saved’ to buy a cart like that?” And as the report went on so did my questions.
Immortal Fish
August 10th, 2012
Look, it’s reasonable to expect a town to enact laws to prevent any garden variety commoner from setting up shop willy-nilly to do whatever they want wherever they want. I can understand and appreciate crating laws to stop that. I suspect that’s where BFH is going with his interjection.
But here’s the rub — The family DID what they were EXPECTED TO DO. They researched before they invested. And once they invested, they were shut down.
Pluck ‘em, Stan!
Immortal Fish
August 10th, 2012
Clyde, I’m still wondering why NOONE in the media, neither left nor right, has reported how the hell the Aurora CO shooter financed his operation. Not just in the theater, but also in his residence. How did he purchase everything he needed to pull all that off?
Honestly, in comparison… who the hell cares how this kid financed his hot dog operation?
Clyde
August 10th, 2012
WAIT! THERE’S MORE!! You can “donate” bucks to Nathan, mom & steppop through the young entrepreneur’s web page:
https://nathanshotdoghut.com/Home_Page.html
PS: In a separate report the kid mentioned that the shelter he and mom are at** is limiting his free internet time thus making maintenance of his page difficult.
**sans steppop who’s on ‘prescription narcotics’ so he can’t seek refuge there
Clyde
August 10th, 2012
fish – nice try with the ad hominem shooter thing. Great comparison – not.
Sure would have liked to have been a fly on the wall when the city “told” mom everything was OK.
After you’re done sending the kid and his folks $$ via his page better double check your claim the shooters income has gone unreported.
Immortal Fish
August 10th, 2012
Okay. Now that we’ve all made ourselves happy jerking ourselves off over ad hominems about ad hominems, I ask once again…
Why are we more infatuated about the facts pertaining to how this (likely government dole family) kid managed to amass the scratch to afford a nice hot dog rig…
…yet we aren’t asking ANY questions AT ALL, on EITHER side, about how exactly James Holmes was able to afford his gear?
Try to avoid embracing your inner Alinsky. I know you can.
reddecaesari
August 11th, 2012
@moe tom
i will never eat a hotdog again from a street vendor. your story has been seared into my brain.
@immortal fish
i wondered the same thing. this guy is unemployed, supported by federal student monies, and buying guns/ammo over a period of months.
Ben
August 11th, 2012
Actually, the city doesn’t have a right. Case precedence has been set and any city that prevents or discriminates against a lawful business is in violation of Federal Law.
It’s your Bill of Rights! Specifically the Right to Work.
The Institute for Justice and the ACLU have won similar cases. Currently over 20 of these cases are pending in local courts where ignorant, bigoted crony capitalism is being served to those whom can’t defend themselves.
It would be like the internet powers that be to tell you that you can’t blog, that you don’t pay as much in taxes as those big time bloggers who must invest in multiple servers and have a higher tax burden and that your site must come down. I know it’s a stretch of the imagination, but a valid analogy nonetheless.
I would hope that you would do some research on these types of laws and the ignorant zealotry behind them and forego jumping into the mix of support for a city that is violating Constitutional Law.
FYI: Not once has any municipality won a case to restrict their city from street vendors that I’m aware.
-Ben
Clyde
August 11th, 2012
fish –
What’s this “we” infatuation stuff? Looks like someone makes a point you don’t like and you lose control. Or do you prefer no one else comment?
You’ve sucked me in once again so here goes. So now it’s your questioning “AT ALL” about Holmes? Quite a prompt abrupt change from your no one reporting song. Make up your mind.
As far as any infatuation looks like you need some help with your questioning/reporting/whatever screed. If you do respect and honor Breitbart as your avatar indicates then surely you saw this last month:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/07/24/Colorado-shooter-took-grant-from-feds
And is often the case after Breitbart breaks something major press outlets and TV networks chimed in. Heck, even HufPo chimed in about the bucks – of course a couple of days after Breitbart.
But I digress – something I’ll leave to you. I’ll try to keep this as simple as I can.
So fish, you’ve stepped on your whatever once again. So goodbye to your accusations of infatuation, Alinsky and jerking off. Given your jumping from hot dogs to MA insurance, to Holmes to whatever your obviously too brilliant and too classy to try and match.
scr_north
August 11th, 2012
I would wonder how much information they gave to the clerk when they asked if the son could open a stand? I can’t believe that a clerk would tell them no permit was necessary for selling food. That really makes no sense and Mom should have realized that and requested confirmation from another source or get it in writing. Leaving that aside for a moment, if they gave the kid special dispensation then that area would be overrun by food carts and I suspect that the city council would have a pile of lawsuits to battle if they refused to allow them to operate while allowing the kid to. I admire the kids spirit but rules are rules and a clerical error does not a free pass make.
Roscoe P. Soultrane
August 11th, 2012
“but rules are rules”
Boy, do the prosecutors at the post-WWII trials look stupid. I wonder if they ever bothered to research German laws before they started hanging people. I suppose we should probably hand a goodly chunk of the country back to England. Pretty sure that rebellion isn’t, strictly speaking, in compliance with the rules.
More to the point, if the city was really worried about the maintenance of the downtown area, they could tax the kid, too.
sTevo
August 11th, 2012
This kid need to get the fuck out of Holland, Michigan a fast as possible.
Brooke
August 11th, 2012
@sTevo: Sounds like the ‘brick and mortar’ business owners need to as well. Thousands in ‘assessments’ on top of their taxes?
Sounds like Holland has ‘em grabbing their ankles.
Immortal Fish
August 11th, 2012
I already knew Holmes got a grant. That link you provided hardly places a period on the end of that sentence. It may satisfy those who would prefer to spend time discussing one child’s association with a sporting goods store, but I for one am still left with questions.
Holmes had to live off that money too. After food, housing, utilities, transportation, etc… was there enough of that $26k left over to purchase all the gear he had? And how long was the period of time between grant award and when the crime took place? A whopping $26k sure could purchase a lot of weapons, but not so much once living expenses over a length of time have been factored in.
You’re satisfied with simply being told that he took chemistry classes and looked how to rig bombs up on the internet? If you’d like to know how to fight Communism, then it starts with being dissatisfied with the few answers the media decides to give you.
You misinterpreted my reply to you as an attack. Do not hold me accountable for your misinterpretations. If you have such a problem with ad hominems, then stop using them. Your posts are dripping in the stuff.
Nutjob
August 11th, 2012
I’ll bet if he said it was going to be a union hot dog cart……he could’ve set up shop.
scr_north
August 11th, 2012
@Roscoe; Wow comparing a hotdog stand screwup with Nazi atrocities and the American Revolution! Do you work for the Democrat Party Super Pac? Hey, maybe you forgot to drop a race card as well.
Roscoe P. Soultrane
August 11th, 2012
@scr_north: “Wow comparing a hotdog stand screwup with Nazi atrocities and the American Revolution! Do you work for the Democrat Party Super Pac? Hey, maybe you forgot to drop a race card as well.”
Were you born this stupid or do you take lessons? Your justification of “rules are rules” is THE justification for all tyrannies – those are the rules, and you have to follow them, right or wrong. Thus, any rebellion by the colonials against the Crown based on the Intolerable Acts or anything else is forever a criminal act and can never be justified.
Moreover, if “the rules are the rules,” then “just following orders” automatically becomes an absolute defense. Thus, the Nazis being tried for war crimes could not have been prosecuted. For the lower level guys, they were simply following orders. For the upper level guys, everything they did was legal under their legal system.
Sorry if your feeble mind can’t grasp these concepts.
Tawny Lee
August 13th, 2012
@Roscoe P. Soultrane – I do agree with scr_north that Rules are Rules and should be either respected or changed, legally. So if there is truly a legal block to him operating at that location, then he can either a) find a legal place to operate or b) change the law. That is how America SHOULD work. Being a law-abiding citizen does not make anyone into a Nazi or any other type of war criminal. There’s a big difference between not letting him run a hot dog cart (and there’s not even an indication that this is motivated by any specific bias against the kid) and imprisonment or execution, don’t ya think? Being overly dramatic just drags the conversation down, and distracts from the point. Yes, the situation sucks. I think the bigger question involves the fact that a 13-yr old is trying to support his whole family in the first place, personally; I think it’s great that he’s already trying to earn his way in the world, and I wish him nothing but good fortune.