Probing water
June 29th, 2007
This is starting to get a little pathetic.
I remember selling lemonade in our front yard growing up. It was a great location — next to the public park and beach, on the corner of two streets, on a busier street. Small glasses were a quarter, larges were fifty. Every once in a while I’d partner up with one of the neighbor kids, and one summer we had a whole franchise operation going on with four different sites, staking out the entire northwest side.
Of course we never made enough money to pay for supplies, but that was our parents’ gift. All we wanted to do was take our earnings and run up to Minit Mart and load up in their long, wide aisles of candy.
Bottled water is the craze now, and Milwaukee youth are just as entrepreneurial of youths past. As the summer heats up, so does the push to make a quick buck. For some of these kids, the push is more than candy at the convenience store. Often the difference is literally life and death. I’m happy to support these kids, often buying two or three bottles at a time.
The arguments surrounding safety, I understand. I’ve been worried many times seeing them up on the median as traffic whizzes by. What the story doesn’t tell, though, is that most of these medians are raised, cement medians — the kind that even have a second crosswalk signal button, because the intersection is so wide it can take two light cycles just to cross. Are we going to outlaw pedestrians waiting “safely” on the median semi-designed for their purpose?
What’s scary, though, but not unexpected is the second part of the story:
Which is why police plan to start issuing more municipal citations for youths who violate city ordinances against selling on medians or being in roadways. They also plan to probe whether the youths are working for themselves or being put up to do it for someone else.
Did this Captain never sell lemonade as a kid? Give them a break. Officials are eager to point out the success of their summer crackdown on violent crime; apparently it’s leaving time leftover to pick on kids looking to make a little money.
I remember this story being huge news right as I was leaving Minnesota. (Note: that Web site has the only permanent link to the Strib story I can find for free. Including the link here does not imply I have become a conservative whore.) Perhaps Milwaukee is going to make the next headline for gross governmental overreach?
In the absence of a real problem or incident, MPD should ensure the kids’ safety rather than chase them out. These are busy intersections — aren’t officers driving through them on patrols on a regular basis? If they aren’t, shouldn’t they? Don’t let this mar an otherwise promising, successful summer in fighting violent crime in Milwaukee. Stop probing water sales and picking on the kids.
