Gardendale, AL — A regular summer right of passage for motivated teenagers across the United States in search of some extra spending money has always been cutting the neighbors’ grass. However, teens in Gardendale, Alabama, and many other cities across the United States, are about to get a rude lesson in how government overregulation stifles personal and financial growth.
Local officials and area law services have reportedly warned area teens that without a business license issued by the city, which costs $110, they are in violation of a city ordinance, thus violating the law, if they attempt to cut grass without a license.
It’s patently absurd that local teenagers can’t make a private agreement with a neighbor to mow a lawn without the government sanctioning the transaction by inserting themselves as the arbiter of who is allowed to legitimately cut grass.
Mowing grass in the summer is often one of the first jobs a motivated teenager will engage in during their summer break from school. But, with a business license costing $110 for a job that will likely be ongoing for a few short months in the summer, the cost will likely drive many ambitious entrepreneurial teens away from what would likely be a rewarding experience.
“I have never heard of a child cutting grass having to have a business license,” Elton Campbell, whose granddaughter, Alainna Parris, mows a few lawns around the neighborhood, told ABC-33/40.
“She charges one lady $20, and another lady $30, and another girl $40 besides what we pay her,” said Campbell.
The teen is disappointed as she felt like this was the perfect way for her to make some extra money during the summer.
“Just helping out and raising money for admissions and trips,” said Alainna Parris.
According to Campbell, Parris is allegedly being targeted by someone upset by the competition from the teen. That person is using the power of the state to eliminate his competition.
“One of the men that cuts several yards made a remark to one of our neighbors, ‘that if he saw her cutting grass again that he was going to call Gardendale because she didn’t have a business license,’” said Campbell.
Campbell called out the irony of trying to prevent a child from taking on a summer job, when they show an internal drive and take the initiative, as so many teenagers are not engaging in enterprising behavior, or taking on additional responsibilities, during their summer break.
“He’s coming after a kid when a kid is at least trying to do work. There’s kids at home on iPads and electronics and not wanting to go outside,” said Parris.
Mayor Stan Hogeland weighed in on the controversy, noting that when operating a business for pay within the city limits, you must have a business license. But, he also said that sending law enforcement after a child trying to earn extra money in the summer is not a priority. Unfortunately, however, if children do resist this tax on their entrepreneurial spirit — police force will most assuredly come. These children would most assuredly face at the very least, a fine, and possibly even arrest.
Hogeland stated he’s committed to finding a way to resolve this issue. But, of course, the government still wants its cut, so he will explore the possibility of a temporary license for summer months that targets entrepreneurial youth.
“I would love to have something on our books that gave a more favorable response to that student out there cutting grass. And see if there’s maybe a temporary license during the summer months that targets teenagers,” said Mayor Hogeland.
While it is heartening to hear Mayor Hogeland recognize that it’s unfortunate there are young people are complaining about the permits for cutting their neighbors grass for a few bucks and saying that he doesn’t want this to discourage kids from trying to earn money, the fact that he still believes that these kids should be licensed, speaks to the true insanity of government over regulation.
There is clear cognitive dissonance seen in Hogeland’s ability to recognize the foolish and petty nature of calling city authorities on these teenagers for trying to do something adults should be congratulating and supporting while at the same time failing to acknowledge that there is no legitimate reason for these kids to be licensed.
The formality of requiring teens to be licensed to cut grass is a simple revenue generation scheme, plain and simple. This type of regulation does nothing to keep anyone safe – and only serves to enrich the government coffers.
Once again the free market is being squeezed by unnecessary regulation, for the sake of revenue generation, which only serves to stifle competition and keep consumer prices higher.
Jay Syrmopoulos is an geopolitical analyst, freethinker, and ardent opponent of authoritarianism. He is currently a graduate student at the University of Denver pursuing a masters in Global Affairs and holds a BA in International Relations. Jay’s writing has been featured on both mainstream and independent media – and has been viewed tens of millions of times. You can follow him on Twitter @SirMetropolis and on Facebook at SirMetropolis. You can support his work at Patreon. This article first appeared here at The Free Thought Project.
“Land of the Free”
Free as birds, Oh i forgot, bird dont ask for permission to fly around.
You got it! This ridiculous corporate code proves two things: 1) Everything we do is illegal without permission, and 2) We own nothing, especially our homes and land even if the mortgage is paid in full (check your deed, you are listed as a tenant). I’m so happy to find so many here who have broken programming and are learning the truth about the fraud and treason that have oppressed us our whole lives. Well done!
Land of the “Fee.” Any real freedom loving person would be embarrassed to call themselves an American now a days,
This is just pathetic…. It seems everyone is a target… I say that neighborhood should ban together and hire her as a professional if they are going to require a license for cutting grass and run this other dude out of business in her neighborhood….
Real easy way around this: Agree to cut the grass for free, and only accept gratuities; say $20 – $30.
For instance: I cut my neighbor’s yard for free. She lets me put my trash into her bin, for free.
Wouldnt you be just be training the kids to be like policitians
not really because the kids would be doing actual work
politicians dont do shite
I could not disagree more. They the bastards I mentioned have been cutting our throats at the biquest of big pharma big business of all types for years. Yea, they are real cute with there lies and sceems. I wish they were not doing shite.
i was being sarcastic of course the only work they have done is destroy our country while lining their pockets along with the CoC and lobbyist
Most of us understood your comment. Labor and working with your hands is what we call an “honest” days work. Politicians are of the “privileged” class who are on the public dole. We pay them and in return they abuse us. That makes us the stupid ones. Withhold their pay — start a local tax strike.
I certainly wasnt trying to offend. Maybe I should have taken a little more time.
Register as charity and ask for donations. (joke)
Liberal socialists need to control every aspect of your life
Gardendale Alabama is as conservative as a town can be. Throwing around the “Liberal and Socialist” label makes you sound like a stooge.
Conservative? Then why not let children mow a lawn without a permit? Maybe you are too young to know what freedom is?
Nothing “liberal” here. Is appears to be more like fascist crony capitalism. Get off the liberal choo choo train yak and see things for what they really are instead of repeating fascist cliches. As the commentator below states, it makes you sound more than a stooge, it makes you sound like a know nothing that has succumbed to a severe case of brainwashing.
Is it really a “business” when a teen might cut three yards a year? Not by IRS standards… this is a conflict of what makes ones efforts be a business…. How many people have many garage sales per year and that is not a business, but a “hobby”…. If the cities “nickle and dime” every effort to make some pocket change, then it will stop people from trying… or they go stealth and try not to be seen doing it…
too much regulation for sure!
Just one more of tens of thousands of consequences of the ever-intensifying, oppressive whirlwind today’s America is reaping as a result of the wind sown by the constitutional framers:
“[B]ecause they have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against my law … they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind….” (Hosea 8:1, 7)
Had Moses come down Mt. Sinai with the Constitutional Republic’s laws, he wouldn’t have come down the Mountain with two tablets, but instead with a hernia, a busted back, and an untold number of wagons pulled by donkeys and elephants alike (pun intended). And some Christians have the audacity to claim Yahweh’s moral law is burdensome, despite the following:
“For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.” (1 John 5:3)
For more on how Yahweh’s immutable moral law applies and should be implemented today, see free online book “Law and Kingdom: Their Relevance Under the New Covenant.” Click on my name, then our website. Go to our Online Books page and search on title.
Then “A Biblical Constitution: A Scriptural Replacement for Secular Government.”
It always amazes me how much supposed ‘Christians’ relying on the revelations away from suppression in the New Testament cite references from the Temple Law which harassed Jesus.
The Hebrew Roots cult has gained considerable ground. Extremely sad to see.
Humans can abuse any system. Making a religious constitution will be rendered meaningless by the capitalist pigs. Just look at all of the bible thumpers like Hagee, Robertson, and Osteen who routinely steal money from gullible people who think that religion is the solution. It starts from within and no amount of empty words will change the heart of a crook or killer.
No wonder there is a lack of respect for the law
There now IS no law! The law is whatever the government says it is at any given moment. These statutes, incorrectly referred to as “laws”, are corporate rules adopted to provide a means to extort money from anyone who is able to earn some, for the benefit of the corporation that pretends to be our elected government. Our governments are all private municipal corporations; federal, state, county, and local. All of these corporations, and those who hold positions in them, constitute a criminal enterprise engaging in the crime of extortion, among many other crimes being committed both here and all over the rest of the world.
Absolutely
Quite true. Sad part is, try and tell that to the average American, even showing them the documents, and all they want to talk about is your tin foil hat! The whole country is suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.
“The whole country is suffering from Stockholm Syndrome”. I think, considering everything I’ve ever read in my 54 years, that one sentence is by far the most TRUE and ACCURATE thing I’ve ever read !!!! Well done sir…..
Jas actually they are suffering from the effects of a people called Khazars. It is they and their sympathizers that uses phrases such as tin foil hats. They are trying to marginalize the messenger because they cannot effectively attack the message. We have witnessed the death of Western Civilization, and we are seeing the birth of a new civilization called the, Khazarain or Krazy Civilization.
Michael -Deo Vindicabamur
Classical Historian Western Civilization
100% true Richard Olsen. Sadly no one believes us and even mocks our statements. I was saying kids needing permits was gonna happen over 25 years ago. I was laughed. I said the Branch Davidians and David Koresh broke no laws and I was not only laughed at, but verbally attacked and threatened. Similar for Randy Weaver.
Yet everything I said was eventually proven correct. Today I will tell you, and it is absolutely true, 9-11 was a false flag. And Sandy Hook was a false flag. I’ve studied this to the point, I have no doubt. Sadly most all of you will deny this and thank worse of me for saying it, just as I was thought of with Koresh and Weaver. These basic reasons you use to conclude such things as “wacko” also applies as to how you have lost your country.
Michael -Deo Vindicabamur
Classical Historian Western Civilization
You are correct, and provably so, in both cases that you mentioned. You can add to that the Boston Marathon hoax, San Bernardino, the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Orlando, and others. All are part of the plan to make us, whom they believe to be now incapable of intelligent thought, fearful and willing to surrender what liberty we have left to secure safety. Unfortunately, thanks to well over a hundred years of compulsory schooling, they are correct in far, far too many cases as respects intelligent thought. The decline and fall of Western Civilization, as has been the case with civilizations that preceded ours, the decline is irreversible once it gets started because the moral fiber of the people has changed from unselfish as it was when the civilization was advancing to selfish and greedy, seeking only immediate self gratification while having no regard for the rights or needs of future generations. In short, the vast majority are now insane, and we are currently living in what could properly be called, “the world’s largest insane asylum”.
Mr Bylaw/Taxman with his hand out. Simply ridiculous!!! Makes me ashamed of where we are today as a society.
Simple solution, 2 fold, 1) go to the “customers house and offer to tell a story, bring in the mail, pick up the newspaper for the 5 or 10 $ and with it they get a free lawn mowed. 2) change the ordinance, make the lawmakers feel like crap for doing what they did and make them examine laws for other “unintended side affects”
Get the customer to sign the agreement, and yes, this sticks a poke in the beast’s eye.
Good thinking. We need more of your kind of good thinking.
Where there is a will there is a Way.
What we really need is more people willing to speak out and vote to change the stupid laws and ordinances so that we don’t have to engage in these silly “work around” techniques just to engage in simple life. Sadly, people are too lazy to vote, to lazy to speak up, to lazy to change things and just accept things.
If you think voting works to change things, you are still asleep…
If you think that not voting changes things then no one can help you. Stop doing nothing and do what you can.
I am saying that it is rigged. Gee whiz, try to help someone and get attacked…
It is rigged, but only to a point. If enough people vote to change the system then it will be changed. I know that the system is in such a way as to keep those in power “in power” and to enrich them but if we can generate enough grassroots power it will change. After all hillary isn’t president and she was supposed to win.
Someone needs to kick that red neck mayor`s a$$.
Any “pig” in a costume enforcing this sick crap needs castration.
This kind of government control is an absolute indicator that this country bears no likeness whatever to the republic that was established after the English agreed to allow us to manage our own affairs after ending their attempt to suppress our revolution. It is, or at least should be, clear to even the most simple minded that we are not a free people. All such statutes or ordinances are contrary to both the letter and the spirit of the constitution for the united states of America that is supposed to be the supreme law of the land. That document and its subsequently ratified Bill of Rights make that clear. It also makes clear that the Supreme Court of the united states has no right to “interpret” the constitution. The assertion by that court early in the history of our republic (which no longer exists) was the first of many usurpations promoted primarily by attorneys that have led inexorably to the tyranny that now prevails here.
We should start with a thousand lawyers into the sea! Then on to the rest of the traitorous BAR.
These kids are stealing the jobs that our immigrant brethren need to support their families.Foodstamps and section 8 housing provided for the children born in the U.S. aren’t enough.They need walkin’ around money too.
Please watch the video link below
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68yP0imJkek
One thing that isn’t mentioned (probably because government hasn’t thought of it yet) is that anyone making any type of income at home on the Internet would also be subject to licensing and arrest for failure.
Death To Tyrants !
Fascist dicktatorship – Anyone ? Because this is exactly what the Empire is – along with its ” Mega Micro Managed Mini-Empires called the State,Territory, US Jurisdiction Area, County, Borough, City, Municipality, town, village, unincorporated but still under county laws and so on.
Whoever made the “complaint” is probably a professional gardener/landscaper, with his share of illegals on his payroll, who would charge double to simply mow lawns. Someone should do some digging. Payback can be a bitch.
This is unconstitutional and tyrannical. Parents need to finally stand up and tell the government, in no uncertain terms that constitutional rights extend to their children and their unborn children in the womb as well. This has gone on for far too long.
Just the march of the fascist Beast. The boil will get worse before it is lanced. However it won’t last. Jesus Christ is the Rock cut out without hands that will smash this kingdom to bits.