Florida man stands his ground against kid’s ‘illegal’ lemonade stand

A Florida man is so sick and tired of a punk kid in his neighborhood ruining his life that he’s emailed City Hall on numerous occasions just to try to restore some semblance of sanity – and so far he’s received zero justice.

61-year-old Dana Wilkey of Dunedin, Florida has been hell bent on shutting down this kid’s “illegal” street corner business – of selling lemonade and cookies. That’s right, 12-year-old T.J. Guerrero has had the audacity to set up a lemonade stand on the corner lot in his neighborhood, a house which is next door to Wilkey. With the roadside business he hopes to make enough money, along with mowing some lawns, to buy himself an iPod, to help pay for trips with his grandfather and to cover his cell phone bill.

Wilkey is having none of it. Here are some of the communications he has made to the City about T.J.’s hustle – which he’s called an “illegal business” among other things:

“If this were a once a year event by a couple kids to earn a little money for a holiday or something, I would not have a problem with it. I am very worried about the value of my home, which is why I built in a residential area, not a business area.”

“The city could possibly face repercussion in the event someone became ill from spoiled/contaminated food or drink sales.”

Wilkey goes on to argue that the stand has caused excessive traffic, trash, noise and illegal parking. Wilkey said that T.J.’s buddies have spoken vulgarities, lit fireworks and one kid even accidentally ran his bicycle into the back of his truck causing damage.

Wilkey complained so much that an officer actually had to make the scene to see if he could defuse the situation. He polled residents of the neighborhood and found that they had no problem with the 10 to 30 customers T.J. sees daily.

Dunedin planning and development director Greg Rice also had to waste his precious time over Wilkey’s bellyaching:

“We’re not in the business of trying to regulate kids like that; nor do we want to do any code enforcement like that. We are not out there trying to put lemonade stands out of business.”

As for T.J.? He’s cool with it and is just looking forward to the day when he turns 14 and can apply for a job as a bagger at Publix (where I hope for all parties involved old man Wilkey doesn’t shop).

HT: Kelly Conaboy/Gawker