Hot Dog!

This space occasionally notes the transgressions committed by petty bureaucrats and doofi with badges who cite and shut down kids with lemonade stands and similar small-scale entrepreneurs. Most of the time the small-business folks run into regulations that might as well have been written by their larger competitors to strangle competition in its cradle.

But every now and again there are public servants who remember that their jobs are to benefit the republic rather than paper over their own inadequacy and feelings of inferiority. Minneapolis teen Jaequan Faulkner set up a hot dog stand that operates on the city's north side. He went all in this summer after a couple of earlier attempts to which he didn't fully commit.

Then he got the call from Minneapolis Health Department inspectors who told him he didn't have a license to operate a food selling business and he wasn't following city codes in food preparation and other areas. They found out about him because someone without enough to do -- I don't gamble but I'd put five down that the caller owns a restaurant near where Jaequan operates -- complained about his business.

Ordinarily this would be the place where health department folks would close the teen down, either with the proper amount of shame and embarrassment at having to treat a kid like the owner of some rat-haven greasy spoon or without. But the department staff went over the requirements Jaequan would need to meet and trained him in how to operate his grill and clean up according to health codes. They showed him what equipment he would need. And when he passed his health inspection, the inspectors paid the cost for his license!

Bureaucrats acting like human beings and helping members of the public achieve their goals? What a wondrous marvel, this modern world we live in.

(H/T Mother Jones)