Man Who Hates Joy Threatens To Call The Cops On Little Girl's Lemonade Stand

He demanded her business license

Last week, Jasmine LaRoche of Discovery Bay, California did what many children do on hot summer days: she set up a lemonade stand. What Jasmine didn’t realize, however, was that the self-appointed police chief of Twitville was on duty that day, and he was not going to stand for this innocent entrepreneurship — not on his watch.

On Thursday, 13-year-old Jasmine LaRoche set up her lemonade stand across from the main entrance to her family’s gated community (“The safest place other than my own driveway in my opinion,” her dad tells Scary Mommy.) Not long after she arrived, a man approached her, demanded her business license, and threatened to call the police. Jasmine’s father, Richard, wrote an open letter to the man and posted it on Facebook, where it was picked up and shared by local broadcaster, Frank Somerville:

“Whoever the man (I wouldn’t call you that if I didn’t have to) was who threatened to call the police on my daughter for her lemonade stand, you are seriously pathetic,” wrote LaRoche, “…She is trying to do something constructive with her time and you hassled her for no good reason. Sorry if her ambition threatened you…I understand that you are upholding the ‘law’ but really, dude? You’re the reason kids lack ambition nowadays — fear caused by schmucks like you…She said you picked up your phone and said you were calling the police. We all know you did that to intimidate her. Just sad and pathetic.”

That man is not lying. Who asks a kid selling lemonade for a business license? Who then gets on his phone and pretends to call the cops to scare her? And scare her he did — in an interview with The San Francisco Gate, LaRoche says, “She was so scared that she came home crying and sobbing and said she didn’t want to go to jail.”

We hope you’re proud of yourself, Deputy Douchebag. Way to enforce refreshment-based laws in your city. I’m sure the public is grateful to you for putting this lovely child out of business.

After LaRoche’s post went up, he started getting comment after comment supporting his daughter: “I told her how much our community supported her when I posted what happened. She was so surprised and encouraged.” So what did this badass girl and her parents do? They dusted themselves off and got right back out there again. The next day they set up another lemonade stand, this time in front of their home. Jasmine was busy for the full three hours she was there.

And who were Jasmine’s last two customers? A couple of police officers who apparently weren’t paying attention as they aided and abetted this sweet criminal in the commission of a crime. For shame, officers. You know who wouldn’t stand for that? Sheriff Shitbag.

We applaud Jasmine for sticking with it and we applaud her dad for the support he has given her — you fought the “law” and you won.