Stand By Me: New Jersey Town Bans Teen Snow-Shoveling

by JASmius

“Fundamental transformation” in microcosm:

School was closed for the blizzard that wasn’t, but there was still enough snow on the ground that two high school seniors thought they could make a few extra bucks.

In the process, Matt Molinari and Eric Schnepf, both 18, also learned a valuable lesson about one of the costs of doing business: government regulations.

The two friends were canvasing a neighborhood near this borough’s border with Bridgewater early Monday evening, handing out fliers promoting their service, when they were pulled over by police and told to stop.

The story was shared on a popular Bound Brook Facebook group by a resident who saw Schnepf being questioned by police after coming to his door.

“Are you kidding me? Our generation does nothing but complain about his generation being lazy and not working for their money,” he wrote on Bound Brook NJ Events’ page. “Here’s a couple kids who take the time to print up flyers, walk door to door in the snow, and then shovel snow for some spending money. And someone calls the cops and they’re told to stop?”

Members of the group responded with support for the young entrepreneurs.

Bound Brook, like many municipalities in the state and country, has a law against unlicensed solicitors and peddlers.

It’s funny, but I don’t ever remember anything like this being done to Charlie Brown….

….I guess Snoopy would already be in jail if he’d lived in Bound Brook, New Jersey.

The local town clowns claimed that they weren’t “harassing” the two youths, but just “concerned for their safety”.  Which is something to keep in mind the next time we hear that law enforcement doesn’t have sufficient “resources”.  It kind of inspires a desire to see just exactly how they’re deploying the “resources” they do have.

But, as Chief Michael Janonne did not unfairly point out, they are enforcing the ordinances, they didn’t make them.  They’re just enforcing this one obnoxiously and ridiculously.  Specifically, the one that commands that anyone selling goods and services door to door must apply for a license that can cost as much as $450 for permission that is valid for only 180 days.

This is a classic case of the difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law.  Does anybody believe that when this “anti-solicitation/panhandling” ordinance was enacted, that it was meant to apply to two enterprising neighborhood kids just looking to capitalize on the latest “Snowmageddon” event to earn a few bucks?

And let’s not single out Bound Brook, New Jersey.  Municipalities all across Obamerikastan have similar regimented restrictions that have also banned youngsters from all manner of traditional embryonic entrepreneurialism ranging from lemonade stands to selling Girl Scout cookies.  Heck, I imagine Lucy Van Pelt’s psychiatric booth would have faced the wrecking ball and handcuffs as well….

….And why?  Because there’s no such thing as the private sector anymore.  It is extinct.  The public sector is universal.  There is no escape, no refuge, no redoubt, no sanctuary from the dead hand of government.  Not if you’re a corporate CEO (unless you contribute heavily to the Democrat Party), not if you’re a small business owner, and not if you’re a teenager looking to make an honest buck to supplement the allowance your unemployed parents can no longer afford.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: We are property.

Take us out, Chuck….