Lemonade Fixed Penalty

[davemercedes]

I expect most people have heard of the story where Andre Spicer, a business school professor, let his daughter set up a stall to sell refreshments outside Lovebox Festival, Tower Hamlets, east London.
Four council bods appeared and read a script saying she did not have the necessary permit (which of course reduced her to tears crying "I've done a bad thing, Daddy..." Then they issued a £150 fixed penalty fine to the dad.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-40697243

The council immediately cancelled the fine saying "We are very sorry that this has happened. We expect our enforcement officers to show common sense and to use their powers sensibly.
- "This clearly did not happen."

But today the Beeb reports: Dozens of job offers for girl fined for lemonade stand :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-40697243

Mr Spice announced that dozens of festivals, markets and businesses have offered his daughter the opportunity to set up a lemonade stand.

- What a nice finish to a story of stupid officialdom!

 

[turbopete]

kid set up stall , council are morons. why is nobody shocked????????

 

[umblecumbuz]

kid set up stall , council are morons. why is nobody shocked????????

Because common sense has vanished, Pete.
Jobsworths rule OK!
There are so many stories:

The dad who was prosecuted because his kid rode a pedal car on the pavement. Driving without due care and attention.

The householder who removed ivy growing up the side of her house because it was causing damp and mortar failure between the bricks, and was fined by the council for defacing a listed building. She then repointed the brickwork and received another threatening letter because it did not quite match the old pointing, and was advised to 'age' the work with yoghurt. When she did so, the council told her she had used the wrong kind of yoghurt!

The biker who covered his skid lid with a wig, and was taken to court because - although it was accepted that he was completely legal - his crash helmet was not 'sufficiently visible'.

The old fella who was prosecuted for not having a tv license. He is over 80, and doesn't have either a tv or a tablet.

The 4x4 owner who was done because his offside wheels were over the white parking bay line. He had to prove in court that the bays were narrower than the legal minimum before anyone finally saw common sense.

Add to the list ...

 

[keefysher]

Common, or good sense has recently been replaced with rare sense.

This was about the same time targets for 50% of the populous to go to university where the degrees are on rolls in the smallest room, when finished your motions, just tear one off.

These degree holders, aka jobsworths, then went into the workplace where they were better than others as they have a degree, as they had been taught by rote whilst at the former college of further education that has been renamed and rebranded as the university of wherever. Those that don't have a degree were deemed beneath the bright new things with the degree, and as the promoters of degrees had also introduced Hardly Responsive / Human Remains (you know the department by the initials) that ruin businesses (they think they run them) with politically correct stupidity; the hitherto productive people who are able to apply knowledge and provide services etc realised it was better to keep quiet, heads down, arse up and keep going.

This is easily proven as we enter the 10th consecutive year of non economic growth, productivity is in decline, and the stupidity this thread is about continues.

 

[Frontstep]

Why is anyone surprised ?



I have had enforcement notices issued on properties for a loose push fit waste pipe, another after a tenant had badly installed lights into a suspended ceiling, I had no idea they were even done.
Planning officers telling me I couldn't have X so I reapplied in another name and got X I could write pages of it.
So many of them don't understand the word guidance.

The best has to be around endangered species where you pay for a survey for the property which says no whatevers are present you then pay for an emergence survey which you guessed it means you pay for people to look for the thing you "haven't got" coming out !!!!!

 

[JohnArnoldBrown]

The people from the council should have known better than to upset the child.
However, the dad should have know better as well.

 

[LostKiwi]

The people from the council should have known better than to upset the child.
However, the dad should have know better as well.

Agreed. A business school professor that was 'unaware' of the rules?
He should definitely have known a permit was required.

 

[Yugguy]

To be fair I wouldn't have known about a permit. Last summer when we were overrun with strawberry plants we dug a load up and stuck them in a box by the side of road with a sign "free strawberry plants". I wonder what overly-bureaocratic rule we might have been breaking?

I'd also want to know why it needed FOUR jobsworths to do this, surely 2 at most if they were worried about things being recorded properly.

 

[SL63 Mark]

Pavement belongs to the council/highways. You can't just set up a stall anywhere you like. That is unfair to legal traders, surely. In this case, they should have warned the parents, not issued the child a penalty notice.

 

[Naraic]

Pavement belongs to the council/highways. You can't just set up a stall anywhere you like. That is unfair to legal traders, surely. In this case, they should have warned the parents, not issued the child a penalty notice.

The problem with the story as reported is the inaccuracy. The child was not issued with the ticket, her publicity seeking father's name was on it.

 

[davidsl500]

I've heard of many a car boot pitch run by a couple of 10 year olds selling bootleg gear - DVD Films, Music CD's etc., as ways of getting around being prosecuted. Every so often one of them would disappear off with a wad of cash to hand over to a guy watching from a distance where he was safe.....

 

[davemercedes]

Yeah well, this little girl was just just five and officialdom was a bit too jobsworth IMO

 

[A.J.]

The problem with the story as reported is the inaccuracy. The child was not issued with the ticket, her publicity seeking father's name was on it.

And that was the real issue, plus the fact that it was misreported by sensation seeking tabloids. The girl was so far under the age of legal responsibility, how can she be ticketed for gods sake ??

 

[Frontstep]

She couldn't be given a penalty notice at her age anyway children have to be 10.
The real problem with these sensationalised stories is the system is brought into disrepute.



https://www.gov.uk/guidance/fixed-p...ment-by-councils#issuing-fpns-to-young-people

 

[davemercedes]

She wasn't given a penalty notice but a lot of the media headlined along the lines of "little girl given ticket".
- It's got something to do with selling newspapers!

The four council blokes who appeared in front of this little girl and her dad, read a "street selling" script and then issued a fixed penalty ticket (which as per my original post, clearly said it was made out to the adult) did quite enough on their own to bring the system into disrepute!
- Even their own employer apologised and said they were expected to but failed to exercise discretion!
- If I paid rates in that area I think I'd be asking them to report on their enforcement numbers!