Contact The Editor
Articles By This Author
Three brothers carrying handwritten letters walked into a community event held by their state representative to air their grievance: They had been priced out of selling lemonade.
The Mielke brothers — Ethan, 13, Seth, 11, and Jonathan, 8 — had sold homemade lemonade at a farmers market in rural Michigan for the last three years. They charged 50 cents for adults and 10 cents for kids and also sold painted rocks and hand-picked produce from their own garden plot at the weekly summer stand.
A few weeks into last summer's season in Rogers City, Michigan, the brothers were told by the market's management team — which had recently changed — that they would need a permit from the district health department to sell lemonade. Their mother, Jessica Mielke, contacted the health department, and learned that if her sons wanted to continue selling the beverages, they would need a temporary food license costing $57 every two weeks of the summer.
That would total nearly $400 to sell lemonade at the stand, which they call "Triple M Goods," from June through September. The brothers typically make between $100 and $200 each during the summer from the stand, Mielke said. They did the calculation and decided it didn't make sense to continue.
In a phone interview with The Washington Post, the brothers said how much they enjoyed making and selling lemonade on Fridays, and how disappointing it was to stop. "You can talk to people and get money and things like that," Ethan said. "I felt bad," Seth said.
"They were really discouraged," Jessica Mielke said.
Mielke said that she and her boys had not seen other lemonade stands at the market. The market organizers did not respond to a request for comment from The Post.
Lemonade stands have been a summer staple for American children going back to the 1800s, though rules regulating them vary broadly among states. In Michigan, lemonade stands are generally required to have a license. Enforcement is often left to local health departments — some of which require permits and fees.
Some states across the country allow lemonade stands without permits, as lawmakers have taken up the cause after high-profile cases in which kids have been fined or shut down over missing permits.
The Mielke brothers spent the offseason brainstorming ways to get back to selling lemonade at their stand. Their mother — who followed up with the health department a few months later to see if the rules had changed, and they had not — suggested they take the problem to their state representative, figuring other children were facing the same issue. The boys wrote letters and in January attended a coffee hour in Alpena, a nearby town, to deliver them to Rep. Cam Cavitt (R-Cheboygan).
Cavitt said he was struck by the boys the moment they approached him.
"They were very well-mannered and polite, they had firm handshakes and looked me in the eyes," he said.
Cavitt said he hadn't known about the issue until the boys brought it to him. "I think it's unfair," he said. "This is a lemonade stand. We all grew up with lemonade stands."
He said running a lemonade stand can lay the groundwork for future business owners.
"They're learning the benefits of hard work. ... They're fostering an entrepreneurial spirit," he said. "We want to encourage t
hese kinds of things in our kids rather than staying home and playing video games." Cavitt said he decided to work on it right away.
On June 11, the Mielke brothers testified at a committee hearing. They drove four hours to Lansing with their parents. The boys prepared a speech together and took turns recounting what happened last summer, and how it affected them.
"It was a little bit uneasy but after a while we got used to it," Ethan said of his experience at the hearing.
On June 25, the Michigan House of Representatives voted 110 to 0 to pass House Bill 6007, which would allow minors to run a lemonade stand on private or public property without permits or licensing fees — as long as they're selling nonalcoholic beverages that don't require refrigeration, and they make less than $5,000 a year. The bill is now heading to the state Senate, where it could be up for a vote in as early as a few weeks, Cavitt said. The brothers — who still sell produce and painted rocks at the farmers market — watched the vote on a livestream at home and marveled as the vote board lit up, their mother said.
"They were pretty excited," she said. "It was a pretty neat experience for them to see how the process works when you have an idea or want a law changed."
Cavitt said he hopes the bill will move forward and become law — ideally while lemonade stand season is still in full swing. He said he is grateful to the Mielke brothers for raising the issue.
"They petitioned their government and they did this," he said. "If you don't like a law, try to change it."
The brothers said they're proud of the progress they've made and are eager to start selling lemonade again someday soon.
"I just hope that it'll pass," Ethan said.
(COMMENT, BELOW)