What are the similarities between the Mafia and the Naperville city council? Answer: they both want a piece of the action, and they can make your life miserable if you don’t comply.
It was recently announced that the City of Naperville estimates it will receive about $1,700,000 in sales tax from the sale of marijuana. That’s pretty good for doing nothing other than green-lighting dispensaries in Naperville.
You might think that city officials would be ecstatic about the windfall, and would be willing to take their heavy knees off the necks of little guys with entrepreneurial spirit trying to make ends meet with start-up businesses; specifically food trucks, but that’s not the case.
If an owner of a business with room for parking wants to allow a little guy to park his/her food truck on their lot, to sell a hot dog, or taco, or bag of peanuts, is that a crime? Apparently it is, unless city officials get a piece of the action in the form of taxes, certifications, permits, regulations, government over-reach, etc.
Watch and listen to councilman Patrick Kelly questioning the concept of looking for a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist:
Listen to councilman Ian Holzhauer as he questions the idea of adding more regulation in the current business environment:
The good news is there is a new law in Illinois helping the little guys. Senate Bill 119 prohibits authorities from regulating or shutting down lemonade stands or similar operations that are being run by children under the age of 16. Known as “Hayli’s Law,” it was inspired by 12-year old Hayli Martinez, whose lemonade stand in Kankakee was shut down by local officials.
If the Naperville city council wants to beat down food truck vendors with the heavy hammer of regulation, here are a couple of tips for food truck vendors; sell some lemonade, appoint a 12-year old as your CEO, and have an attorney ready to file a winning-lawsuit against the city, if the city tries to squeeze you out of business. That should solve the situation.
Forget about the hot dog stand and talk about the 1.7 million raised on an entry, mind altering drug while kids and adults are dying by the 10s of thousands nationwide because of drug abuse. Is money now the ultimate goal of government which allows them to spend more to bribe voters to vote for them? This is despicable and sums up how low we, as a society, have sunk!
Benny White is going to run for Mayor and his Wife, Kim, is going to punish any of those that don’t agree with her. She’s already stopped some people from participating in a Naperville parade recently. You better not cross Kim!
The parades in Naperville are sponsored by the groups like Rotary, West Suburban Irish, Jaycees, etc. I know Kim is not member of most of these groups (a suspect she is not a member of any of the groups involved in these parades) and has no say in who does and does not participate in these parades. The deciding factor is generally getting your application to participate in the parade to the group running it before all the available spots in the the parade are filled or the deadline for applications passes, which ever comes first.