Oregon Girl Barred From Selling Mistletoe But Told Okay to Beg

Didn't see this posted and not quite sure where to place it. Mod's please move if need be and/or close if already posted.

Just another one of those "shake your head" articles.

Driven by her budding entrepreneurial instincts, an 11-year-old Oregon girl wanted to help her dad pay for her braces by selling mistletoe over the holidays, but she got tangled up in red tape instead. Madison Root, of Portland, hit the downtown market on Saturday morning to sell the plants that she said she cut and wrapped herself from her uncle’s farm in Newberg, Ore.
“I felt like I could help my dad with the money,” she told ABC News affiliate KATU News.

But a private security guard hired by Portland Saturday Market asked her to stop selling the mistletoe because city rules ban conducting business or soliciting at a park without proper approval and documentation.

“The guard told her she can beg if she wanted but she can’t sell the mistletoe,” Root’s father, Ashton told, ABCNews.com. He also said that Root “does not want to encourage begging and wants people to earn their living… She is so keen on high work ethic.

“I don’t want to beg! I would rather work for something than beg,” Madison told KATU News. “I wouldn’t think I’d have any problems because people are asking for money, people are selling stuff, this is a public place.”

Link to story

reply to post by MrLimpet


Disgusting.

This is the regulatory state at work.

Can't have kids thinking they can engage in actual free market capitalism. Big brother needs his cut, too.

Well, considering that mistletoe is known to be toxic to humans, I am not really surprised..

She might as well be selling hemlock.

reply to post by juniperberry


But it's simple that no one can sell in the park without permits.

It's just like them jackoffs crushing kids for selling lemonade on their sidewalks! Oh, the horror of the American way!

reply to post by MrLimpet


The only reason anything is illegal is either because the government has no way of taxing it or so they can over tax you by making you pay a fine. Don't ever think laws are there to protect you.

reply to post by MrLimpet


Yeah, so thats common knowledge for most people in Portland. Most of the parks are operated by Trusts, and you need permits to sell or host events UNLESS it's reserved under the Constitution (small rallies, begging, political signs, crap like that).

Damn her.

Damn her to hell for wanting to go outside the system to pay for healthcare/dental care.

She has to beg on the street, beg the government, beg the state authority to get her teeth fixed!

What the #### was she thinking about paying for it herself? (She must be a racist!)

reply to post by beezzer


Leave it to Beezzer to make me laugh.

ItCameFromOuterSpace
reply to post by MrLimpet

 

The only reason anything is illegal is either because the government has no way of taxing it or so they can over tax you by making you pay a fine. Don't ever think laws are there to protect you.

Yep! There not getting a cut, so you cant do it. It really is that simple.

reply to post by MrLimpet


Perhaps "begging" is the wrong term. I think what the officer was telling her, in my opinion, was since she didn't have the proper permit, that she could set up her mistletoe and ask for, for example, $5 donations to help pay for braces. She probably would have killed it!

Driven by her budding entrepreneurial instincts

icwatudidthere.jpeg

I'm not all that rustled by this. It actually makes a lot of sense. If people have to pay rent and there is a process for approval you can't just go letting anyone start setting up shop.

I get that it's a cute story but you let this girl do it the place is going to be rife with scam artists in no time pitching sob stories and driving away legit business.

I think what she wanted to do was awesome. Couldn't she just have swapped signs to say 'Free, Donations For Braces Appreciated'? Or hock her wares near the entrance?

Being the cynical ass that I am I wouldn't be surprised if this WAS sort of a scam. Do something you know will jerk at heartstrings that you also know will not be allowed, contact news, watch donations pour in. It's a pretty solid plan in todays age. Stop supporting criminals.

Some of that was tongue in cheek, but I really don't think it's this huge trampling of people's rights to require a permit, even for a kid. Otherwise I'd go find some floozy to poop out a baby for me and set up a kiosk in the mall selling tainted lemonade. I would be flush with cash.

Business developed from the local market. People came and pawned their wares. It still happens around the world today.

But, with corporate structure and proactive regulations, the west has shaped a new system that thinks about everyone. The little guy. And every little guy is able to work at Walmart for a high wage, decent wage, bread money…

This girl, instead of trying to railroad the altruistic system which has been put into place by our gods, our elected officials lobbyists, should have simply applied for a job at Walmart to help her dad. If she didn't meet the age requirements she could have shipped over to China and worked in the Walmart factories and earned a ton of money, earning at least $6 a day, sending the rest home like the rural workers do.

Unbelievable the type of brash youth we have these days. Arrogance!

reply to post by Domo1

I'm not all that rustled by this. It actually makes a lot of sense. If people have to pay rent and there is a process for approval you can't just go letting anyone start setting up shop.

I get that it's a cute story but you let this girl do it the place is going to be rife with scam artists in no time pitching sob stories and driving away legit business.

I agree with you on this, but, it also kind of reminds me of the lemonade stands getting shut down though. It would be nice if kids under a certain age could just set out and do their own little entrepreneurial stuff like this, as in: they get a fast track license at a reduced rate or something, but then I assume adults would be exploiting them.

Oh the humanity of it all…

juniperberry
Well, considering that mistletoe is known to be toxic to humans, I am not really surprised..

She might as well be selling hemlock.

Windex is toxic to humans. I recommend you don't wash down your hemlock with it.

reply to post by boncho

I agree with you on this, but, it also kind of reminds me of the lemonade stands getting shut down though.

The lemonade stands getting shut down irritates me. I think I got a little trolly in one thread about it (sorry all) but it seems ridiculous. The kid's not making a big revenue, people should be smart enough to know that the lemonade may be nasty/antifreeze. That borders on taxing the tooth fairy (smug tax dodging B).

It's one of those things where I suppose there should be regulations and such but anyone enforcing it is a jackass.

She needs to merely up her entrepreneurial game and give away the mistletoe while "suggesting donations" of $X amount.

I'll take 20% to manage and spearhead this endeavor.

Ah, the older I get, the more cynical I get. Apparently the father knew about the rules re selling at this park market. If you owned a bakery, would you want some cute kid selling her homemade cupcakes inside your store? The rules were meant to protect the businesses of those participating in the park market. It could be that in the future maybe there could be a change in the rule to allow a cute little kid to sell a homemade item maybe in a specific area of the market.

Anyway, rather than move to the sidewalk and continue to sell the mistletoe, the father phones the local news station to complain. This was a great publicity move for his daughter's business; it wasn't a charity, because she was selling to make money for herself. (Dad knows about marketing, because he has his own business of selling a product that can be used for his multi tier marketing plan.)

She then uses her acting and filming skills, inherited from her father, in a news station video, promoting the idea that cute kids just want to be entrepreneurs. She then sets up a website to solicit donations (begging online rather than in the cold outside) and also establishes her creds as an entrepreneur who just wants to help kids of all ages be entrepreneurs.

Of course, maybe part of this helping could involve helping others to use her father's product to help themselves set up and run a sales/marketing website. Maybe multi tier. Like her dad.

Maybe she can do charity work by helping those street beggers set up online begging sites. And use her father's product.

This young lady definitely has a future in the world of non-profits (I'm thinking that her website might be one of those "educational" enterprises.) She can already latch onto a cause and make money from it. This making money from religion and causes (social or political) sure has been lucrative for a few decades now, providing many an American with income.

Well, maybe I'm just getting too old and cynical. Or maybe I just smell a skunk still, left over from my skunky relative who recently tried to scam family members with begging (and this relative is now becoming a motivational speaker!).

Ok, also getting up there in years means my brain is filled with a lot of stuff. Something bothered me ... the girl and her dad are from Lake Oswego ... Lake Oswego .. Lake Oswego ... that's the richest city in Oregon!! They can't afford braces? My God, the economy is worse than I had thought!

Now, she has an event set for a Saturday. She's going to speak, and sell or ask for donations for her mistletoe. Mark my words, her speech will be along the lines of government going after people that work, while beggars and pot smokers are free to do what they want.

Hey, it's a free country. If she wants to speak, she's got the same rights as the beggars and pot smokers up there. If she wants to sell at the market, she can apply for a permit, just like all the other people there who work selling their items.

Who put it into her head that she's entitled to something different than her fellow market sellers? Or maybe she's an anarchist and just wants all the market sellers to not have to pay. We'll see what she has to say at her Christmas time street theatre.