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PORTLAND, Ore. - A county official in Oregon has apologized after health inspectors soured a 7-year-old's business venture by shutting down her lemonade stand.

Multnomah County Chairman Jeff Cogen, the county's top elected official, said the inspectors were "following the rule book," The Oregonian reported, but that regulators should take into consideration the intent of the food safety rules: To govern adults running professional food businesses.

Cogen's apology came after inspectors cracked down on Julie Murphy and her mother, Maria Fife, after they set up a lemonade stand at a local arts fair in northeast Portland. After just 20 minutes of selling the drinks, made from gallon jugs of water and Kool-Aid packets, an inspector asked to see their license, The Oregonian reported.

According to state law, even the ubiquitous summertime children's enterprise technically needs a temporary restaurant license, at a cost of $120 for one day.

After giving the pair the choice of continuing to sell the lemonade and face a fine of up to $500, or pack up and go home, the mother-daughter team opted to leave, the newspaper said.

Girl's tears
The ultimatum rallied vendors at other booths, The Oregonian reported, but after the crowd surrounded the first inspector and another who came to assist, Fife left with her daughter, who began to cry.

"A lemonade stand is a classic, iconic American kid thing to do," he told the newspaper. "I don't want to be in the business of shutting that down." Cogen added that he, too, had operated a stand as a child.

Fife told The Oregonian that she appreciated Cogen's apology, and that her daughter was happy, as "she's starting to see it had some effect."

Newspaper readers and a local radio station offered to pitch in to sponsor Murphy's lemonade stand, the report added.

But some county leaders took a more cautious tone about the situation.

The director of business services for the county health department, Wendy Lear, told the paper that staff still need to protect the public's interest by monitoring food operations at events like festivals and fairs.

City Commissioner Amanda Fritz told The Oregonian that new plans are in the works for the festival in question, but that she agreed with the health inspectors' decision to shutter the stand.

"When you've got 15,000 people, it's no longer a neighborhood event, it's a regional event," she told the newspaper. "The county has the responsibility to fairly enforce the rules on permits and food handlers' permits."

Mark wrote:It was friggin' Kool-Aid! Your not going to poison someone with Kool-Aid.

Deepcrush wrote:If that were my kid, I'd have beat his ass right there in front of everyone for "assaulting" my child.

Deepcrush wrote:If that were my kid, I'd have beat his ass right there in front of everyone for "assaulting" my child.

Mikey wrote:I don't know if I could conscience that

Mikey wrote:unless he laid a hand on my kid.

Mikey wrote:For sure, I could call him out very loudly and publicly for being a dumbass, though.