Let’s have a little less hysteria over the Tower Hamlets lemonade stall fine
Andre Spicer said his daughter burst into tears and told him “I’ve done a bad thing” [Image: Andre Spicer].
It is true that enforcement officers from Tower Hamlets Council were stupid enough to penalise the youngster – but the council itself has reprimanded those people for their lack of “common sense”.
Tower Hamlets has been wrongly described as a Labour-run council. In fact no party has overall control, but the borough has a Labour mayor.
That hasn’t stopped people from making some very foolish remarks:
This is what socialism looks like. Regulations/Big Gov everywhere
BBC News – Girl, 5, fined £150 for lemonade stand https://t.co/BWNrBUNx9d
— Derek Goulding (@derekgoulding) July 21, 2017
Can we start a crowdfunder to get back the £150 fine for this news story it's absolutely ridiculous BBC News – Girl https://t.co/7Csk8sLmXz
— Stewart Lee (@stewartelee) July 21, 2017
(Obviously this person had not read the article and didn’t realise the fine had been revoked.)
https://twitter.com/stixy/status/888312750849609728
If anybody wants to use this to comment on the Labour Party, then, there can only be one thing to say:
Well done – for showing the sense that the council’s enforcement officers didn’t have, cancelling their silly fine, and apologising for ruining this well-intentioned girl’s day.
A five-year-old girl was fined £150 by a council for selling 50p cups of lemonade to festival goers.
The girl’s father, Andre Spicer, said his daughter had set up the stall in Mile End, east London, while thousands of music fans were on their way to the Lovebox Festival at the weekend.
“But after a small time trading, four enforcement officers walked over from the other side of the road.
“They turned on their mobile camera and began reading from a big script explaining that she did not have a trading licence.
“My daughter clung to me screaming ‘daddy, daddy, I’ve done a bad thing.’ She’s five.
“We were then issued a fine of £150. We packed up and walked home.”
A council spokesman said: “We are very sorry that this has happened. We expect our enforcement officers to show common sense and to use their powers sensibly.
“This clearly did not happen.
“The fine will be cancelled immediately and we have contacted Mr Spicer and his daughter to apologise.”
Source: Girl, 5, fined £150 for lemonade stand – BBC News
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Bully the disabled. Bully the residents in Grenfell Tower. Bully 5 year olds. Bully Culture in society. Bully dictatorship means run the bullies out of the dictatorship not 5 year olds.
4 enforcement officers? How brave!
Next we will hear in a few years time that stupid girl set up franchises all over the country. The amount of money she pays in taxes is just beyond contempt.
So you expect a five-year-old girl to pay taxes, do you?
all i can say is they have destroyed any trust that little girl had in police, council officials etc and no amount of apologies is going to take that distrust away from that little girl. if she needs help from those people in the future she wont ask for it. at least not till she gets past her teens, i bet. A reprimand for those responsible is not enough. if they have no common sense at least they should have seen the child was only doing what most kids have done at some point in their lives through the ages. the position they hold needs common sense and empathy at least. sack em.plenty of others could do that job with the right attributes
Trust seems likely to be the issue of the summer.
As it erodes, society will become further troubled.
We need to clean out the corruption in our public authorities, restore regulation to our businesses and re-establish fairness – real fairness, not the Tory version that relies on sound bites rather than action – in our daily lives.
But what kind of idiots are they employing to take action such as this?
The recruitment system in Tower Hamlets is corrupt.
Silly Billies everywhere
Sorry – point here? The 5 year old could not legally have been fined – presumably her father was? If so then why should his fine be quashed if he has broken a byelaw. Sensationalist gutter journalism.
The point is that people were using this story to bash the Labour Party when the only contribution any Labour member could possibly have made was to cancel the fine.
And if you think the father deserved to be fined because his daughter was trying to do something nice, I’m sorry but you’ve got a screw loose.
Common sense, please.
Unfortunately the Right-wing papperazi will jump on even a slight hint of wrongdoing, whether it’s true, or not, if it means being able to have a pop at the Labour Party, and Jeremy Corbyn in particular.
All throughout this last couple of years, the tories have used personalities as a way of getting at, and to, those who are trying to get us away from their Austerity program, because they have no policies to speak of, and they have totally ruined this country, and everything that we could be proud of, in their hunger for money and power!
What saddens me the most, is when people retweet these lies, without even an attempt to see whether the story is true or not – what’s that old Proverb?
‘‘A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on.”
We could do with less hysteria all round. It seems that these enforcement officers are not the only ones who are lacking commonsense, these days but FOUR(!) Talk about heavy handed! What, on Earth, did they think that they were doing and what did they hope to achieve? I cannot believe that they even felt it necessary to do any paperwork. This is typical of what we witness online, almost, if not, every day; disproportionate and irrational responses. How often, when we hear something, do we bother to check the sources; find out, for ourselves, what actually happened, what was actually said, before we round up the villagers, with their pitchforks and start demanding executions? We have become a reactionary society; shoot first, ask questions, later. We all need to stop and think.
I was reading Zero Hedge this morning & it was mentioned. Our country is becoming a laughing stock. Ridiculously stupid
I visited Zero Hedge after seeing it mentioned by you.
What an ugly-looking site!
I’m amazed you can read anything on it.
Tower Hamlets is the most corrupt local council in the country. It is run by Labour and has been for decades. This, the most wealthy council, has an income of over £1.2 billion, its population includes many of the poorest. Vote-rigging is a fine art in the borough and it’s attitude is menacing and threatening towards any of its citizens who cross it. And you call this socialism? The crass intervention with the enterprising young lady is quite typical. So let’s hear no more excuse-making, just because it’s Labour. We all know that corruption and misfeasance exists in councils of all colours. Grenfell could have happened in any city borough in the country, though the arrogance of the Kensington and Chelsea Tories is particularly astonishing. Labour supporters, like myself, do no favours to the Corbynista leadership by overlooking crass Labour local government, indeed the reverse. Jeremy and his team will have to transform Tower Hamlets Labour Party, if it is not to become a national embarrassment. An international anti-corruption case which opened in Paris last week will have huge implications for Tower Hamlets and many other areas of the UK. Put your helmets on! [email protected]
How can it be the most wealthy council if its population includes many of the poorest people?