Colorado HOA calls cops on kids’ lemonade stand to get ‘illegal’ operation shut down

A homeowners association (HOA) in Colorado called the local sheriff’s office earlier this month on a group of children who set up a lemonade stand.

The incident, described in the Summit County Sheriff’s Office Justice Files community police bulletin for the week of July 15, tells the tale of the gritty, citrus-based street crime as follows.

Authorities say that HOA members first summoned police due to reports of “children running an illegal lemonade stand on county right of way.”

When the sheriff’s deputies arrived, they “found that the children were not blocking the roadway but did ask them to move back from the road a few feet for their safety.”

Thinking the matter was resolved, the officers then moved on to other calls about parking issues in the area, only to head back to the scene of the stand when the “original reporting parties came out and began yelling at the children claiming they were on private property.”

As the refreshment row reached fever pitch, the officers discovered that the children running the stand themselves lived within the HOA and that the lemonade pushers “had a right to be there” on the association’s communally held property, leaving the wayward youths to continue their street war against scurvy.

Amazingly, this is not the first time a children’s lemonade stand has been a concern of Colorado government.

In 2018, the Denver Police Department shut down a lemonade stand being run by three boys near an arts festival across the street from their house. They planned to donate the proceeds to their church.

"We don’t go out of our way to enforce matters of this nature and in this instance, our actions were complaint-driven," the Denver Police Department said in a Facebook post at the time. "When officers receive a complaint, we have an obligation to act."

The shut-down took Jennifer Knowles, the boys’ mother, by surprise, she told The Denver Post.

"I was very surprised and shocked that all this was necessary for a child’s lemonade stand," she said.

The story inspired Governor Jared Polis to sign a law the following year, allowing children to run lemonade stands and other “occasional” businesses without a license.

“Thrilled to sign the bipartisan Lemonade Stand Bill today that reduces regulations and cuts red tape, making it easier for young entrepreneurs to start their own businesses!" Polis wrote on Twitter at the time.

So, while selling lemonade in Colorado may be legal, it seems young lemon tenders still need to keep a sharp eye on their surroundings. You never know what the neighbors are going to think.