Kids Fined $500 for Operating Lemonade Stand Outside U.S. Open

This seems like a good time to quote Gawker:

What's worse than a story about how a group of children were fined $500 by Montgomery County for operating a lemonade stand without a permit outside the site of this weekend's US Open? How about the fact that they were going to donate their proceeds to a pediatric cancer-fighting charity?

See, officials in the Maryland County found it just flat out wrong that a group of kids would find the audacity to sell lemonade to golf patrons. According to WUSA-TV, a county inspector happened upon the kids' stand near Congressional, the host course for the U.S. Open, and warned the kids and their parents to cease and desist. They didn't. So the inspector handed them a $500 fine.

"This gentleman from the county is now telling us because we don't have a vendors license, the kids won't be allowed to sell their lemonade," Carrie Marriott, one of the parents, told WUSA.

"Does every kid who sells lemonade now have to register with the county?" she asked the inspector. His response? The stand was too big to avoid scrutiny.

"Cute little kids making five or ten dollars is a little bit different than making hundreds. You've got coolers and coolers here," he said.

As for the kids, they're upset too.

"I don't agree, I think the county is wrong," said one. "We're sending the money to charity," said another.

Watch the story below:

Read the entire story from WUSA.