You have a permit for that lemonade stand?

Here's a letter that appeared in the Sentinel and in the Good Times last week we wanted to share:

You have a permit for that lemonade stand?
 

I live near the river and was greatly relieved last Friday to see police rousting a crowd of thrill-seekers cleaning up trash under the Soquel Avenue bridge, and trying to watch a local movie with the filmmaker. 

If we let people think they can just sit around after dark watching movies together outside, who knows where this refusing-to-ask-permission will end. Don't they know that like Cinderella's carriage, our public spaces magically transform into "not public" after dark? Yet as glad as I am to see the city taking permit violations seriously, I don't think we've gone nearly far enough.

It's one thing to go after the so-called Guerilla Drive-in, or the leftist mob that wants to celebrate New Year's downtown without a permission slip, but what about the dangers of the ever-present lemonade stands? I've passed three in my neighborhood in the past week. Not one had a license, and I highly suspect health code and child labor violations at all of them. Let's put our law enforcement resources where they belong.
Steve Schnaar, Santa Cruz