Kraft Heinz Takes Legal Action to Help Kids Slapped With Lemonade Stand Fines (Video)

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Children opening lemonade stands in front of their houses or on street corners is as American as country pie. There is hardly an adult that has not done it themselves or seen one with smiling kids selling a cup for 50 cents. 

Their reasons for doing so range from saving for a bike, buying a new toy or helping to raise money for a charity or their church.

Somewhere along the line kids started getting busted, shut down and fined by police for running their lemonade stands without permits – sounds crazy, but there you have it.

Thanks to food giant Kraft Heinz, the kids are getting some much needed national attention and “Legal-Ade.”

Fox News reports:

The brand’s Country Time Lemonade unit announced Thursday that it will personally defend and pay for any fines that children get for trying to sell the summertime drink.

“We recently came across a story of a kid getting her lemonade stand shut down for legal reasons, which had to be an urban myth. After looking into it and seeing even more instances, we realized these weren’t myths, they were real stories,” Adam Butler, general manager for beverage and nuts for Kraft Heinz, told Fox Business.

Just last week, three brothers, ages 2 to 6, from Stapleton, Colorado, got their lemonade stand shut down by Denver cops after several vendors at a nearby arts festival called the police to complain the kids were undercutting their prices.

The brothers, who didn’t have a temporary vending permit, were told that they were violating city policy and needed to shut down their business. The boys were trying to raise money for a nonprofit child-advocacy ministry called Compassion International that supports children in poverty.

“I was very surprised and shocked that all this was necessary for a child’s lemonade stand,” the boy’s mother told The Denver Post. “When I think back to my childhood, I had lemonade stands all the time. It never occurred to me that it wouldn’t be OK for my kids to do the same.”

But according to Butler, this summer will be different.

The fifth-largest food and beverage company in the world with a market cap of $71 billion said it has created a “Legal-Ade” unit that is on hand to help kids and their parents fight any legal woes or fines associated with their lemonade stands.

“Any child fined for running a lemonade stand without a permit can have his or her parent apply for reimbursement. To apply, simply upload the image of your child’s permit or fine along with a description of what your lemonade stand means to your child, in his or her own words,” the company said in a statement.

Each submission will then be reviewed by Country Time Lemonade’s team and if it complies with the terms, the company will cover the permit fee or fine, up to $300. Additionally, it will donate up to $500,000 to help kids with their entrepreneurial pursuits next year and beyond.

“Go ahead, kids. Run your lemonade stands. Country TimeLegal-Ade is on your side and will protect you. When life hands you outdated laws, make lemonade, and get Legal-Ade,” the company said.

Good for Kraft Heinz for coming to the kids rescue. Hopefully, with the attention they are getting there will be an end to this lunacy that a child selling lemonade needs a permit.

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