EvinDC / Flickr

It’s not often that Country Time Lemonade wades into D.C. Council debates. But there’s a first time for everything.

On Tuesday, Ward 4 Councilmember Brandon Todd introduced the Lemonade Stand Amendment Act of 2019, which would cut the red tape around small, temporary businesses run by minors.

The bill would amend existing D.C. laws around food vending to clarify that minors running a small-scale business don’t need a business license or a vending site permit. The business has to be in operation for fewer than 100 days in a calendar year, and it has to be located “a reasonable distance from a licensed commercial entity,” according to the legislation as introduced.

Country Time, which has started a campaign this summer urging jurisdictions to “legalize lemonade,” expressed its approval for the bill on Twitter. The Council appears to like it, too—all 12 other members co-introduced the bill. It was referred to the Committee of the Whole.

The law is aimed at making sure children don’t get in trouble for setting up lemonade stands, bake sales, or other similar small ventures, according to Todd. “I introduced the legislation firstly to encourage entrepreneurship among our young people, and we know the bill would allow young people the ability to start a small business,” he says.

Todd says there was no specific event that prompted him to introduce the bill. But the legislation calls to mind a particularly riveting Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner race last year in Todd’s ward, wherein a write-in candidate managed to narrowly defeat an incumbent based on a lively debate around lemonade stands. You may have seen the posters littering district 4C08: “ASK TIM JONES WHY HE HATES LEMONADE STANDS,” they read. “WRITE-IN LEAH ANDERSON.”

Jones was the longtime ANC commissioner of 4C08. He had a mixed reputation among his constituents, and paid particularly scrupulous attention to event permits—he had been known to try to thwart block parties and other such events that he said were not permitted correctly, according to Petworth News. Last year, right before a yearly neighborhood block party called Blocktoberfest was set to take place, Jones contacted city officials to try to get the block party’s permit revoked. It was not a block party, he argued, but a “special event,” and had not been permitted correctly, per Petworth News.

Among his gripes about the plans for Blocktoberfest? You guessed it: lemonade stands.

At Blocktoberfest in 2017, children set up lemonade stands to raise funds for breast cancer awareness after a neighbor had passed away from the illness, according to Petworth News. Jones reportedly took umbrage with the stands, saying they changed the nature of the party and the kinds of permits necessary.

Ultimately, the brouhaha cost Jones his ANC seat. Anderson narrowly beat him as a last-minute write-in candidate accusing him of hating lemonade. Jones told Petworth News last year about the debacle: “What do I have against lemonade? Sugar.”

Todd says his legislation wasn’t directly related to the lemonade stand controversy that rocked his ward last year. But he concedes that the issue is obviously an important one to his constituents.

“Last year was a big deal. A commissioner who served so ably for so many years, voters turned him out,” he says. “There was so much energy behind that lemonade stand. But that wasn’t the impetus for the bill.”

Filed Under: brandon todd, d.c. council, lemonade, lemonade stand, ward 4,