Two police officers from New York have gone viral across social media for refusing to shut down a kid’s lemonade stand.
One of the kid’s neighbors had reportedly called the police to shut down the innocent lemonade stand — for who knows what reason other than that their neighbor has little else to bother them. However, the police were far from on board with the idea.
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Whitney Glover’s children, along with some other children from the neighborhood, decided to sell some lemonade during rush hour at the side of the road.
The lemonade stand was only up for under two hours when a police car pulled up, explained Glover to News 12 Westchester . Glover expected the officers to shut down the stand and send the kids home; however, this was far from the case.
Instead of shutting the stand down the two police officers bought themselves a glass of lemonade and posed for photos with the children.
Whitney Glover shared the photos of the police officers enjoying their lemonade on Facebook, and the post has since gone viral.
Glover wrote on her Facebook profile: “So the kids where I live decided to have a Lemonade stand during rush hour. Smart idea. However some bitter person decided to call the cops on them. Instead of the officers shutting it down they decided to have a cup themselves. Thanks Town of Newburgh Police Department.”
According to Glover, the police officers themselves were just as shocked at someone calling the police on innocent kids.
Speaking in an interview with KSLA , Glover said, “[The Officer’s] first words were, ‘Can you believe someone called the cops on kids selling lemonade?'”
Since the post has gone viral, the kids’ stand has apparently been swarmed with people showing their support for the kids.
Glover said that the kids have now made hundreds of dollars over just a few days thanks to the exposure that the story has garnered.
It’s great to see that someone complaining about kids selling lemonade has more than likely turned that stand into the most successful lemonade stand that street has seen. I like to imagine that person scowling out of the window, shaking their fist and cursing to themselves like Mr. Reginald Curry from Paddington Bear.
The official page for the police department even shared the photos, and commended the officers for their community spirit.
The story touched a lot of people, with a lot of them praising the officers for their wonderful attitude when dealing with the kids. In among so many stories of conflict that dominate the media at present, this small moment of community spirit really captured the hearts of not only the locals, but across America.
Shockingly, stories of lemonade stands being shut down are far from rare.
Not all kids are as lucky as Ms Glovers kids, as stories of police officers shutting down lemonade stands for reasons such as a lack of permit are fairly common. It would seem that little kids need to get permits as well in this day and age to earn a few bucks.
Back in 2018, one mother was told by police that she needed to shut down her 4 to 6 year-old kids lemonade stand as they lacked the appropriate permits.
Jennifer Knowles told Fox4 :
“I want to teach my kids about being an entrepreneur and having your own business. My 6-year-old got his little toy cash register out that he got when he was about two or three and he was learning how to interact with customers and about customer service.”
What was perhaps most shocking element of this story was that all of the money that the kids raised was going to charity.
The small children apparently became very upset when the police shut down their stand and began to cry. The children had chosen to donate their money to a company called Compassion International.
Knowles said, “We here are very fortunate and we forget that many kids in the world are not as fortunate as we are in Colorado or in the country, and so I wanted to teach them how to donate money to a charity […] They picked a little 5-year-old boy from Indonesia with siblings, two siblings, kind of like them.”
So, if you’re planning on letting your kid try and sell some lemonade for a little cash then you’d better make sure you’ve got your permits all in order!
It seems bizarre that this is how the world works compared to when we were young.
Hopefully more police officers like those from Newburgh Police Department will realize that these children are simply trying to earn a little extra pocket money, and maybe learn a little bit about business as well.
