VICTOR JOECKS: Let kids sell cookies without a permit

Santa Claus needs to deliver a big lump of coal to the Southern Nevada Health District. It’s now cracking down on kids selling cookies.

On Friday evening, the Enchant Christmas event at the Las Vegas Ballpark will include a Children’s Entrepreneur Market featuring around 50 booths of kids selling various items. Similar markets have taken place in 200 cities around the country. They are a project of the Libertas Network, a free-market group that also publishes the fantastic Tuttle Twins children’s books.

The point of this exercise is in the name — kids learning how to be entrepreneurs. I know this firsthand, because my kids participated in a similar market last Saturday in Henderson. They’re going to be at this one on Friday, too. They’re excited for the chance to make a few bucks. I’m excited for them to see what it’s like to sell and run a business. I want my young children to work on overcoming their shyness. I want my older ones to think about how best to display products and engage customers. Hands-on learning is great.

If you’ve been to an event like this, you know that children often sell homemade baked goods or beverages. But that’s got local health bureaucrats in a tizzy.

For Friday’s event, the health district is requiring children to obtain a $171 temporary food permit plus late fees, according to Amanda Dillon, Nevada manager for Children’s Entrepreneur Market. But that wouldn’t even allow the kids to sell cookies they baked at home. Instead, they would be allowed to sell only food items that were purchased the day of the event and left in the original packaging. Talk about crushing a child’s culinary dreams.

The bureaucrats at the Southern Nevada Health District have run out of common sense. These are kids trying to learn, not adults running a traditional business or side hustle. A $171 permit is a prohibitively high barrier to entry when a child is unlikely sell $171 worth of food items.

After some parents discovered the cost of the permit, “they weren’t able to do it,” Dillon said. My kids aren’t selling food, but I feel for the parents whose kids hoped to do so.

The district claims state law and its own regulations require this absurdity. “Vendors selling food at events that are open to the public” must have a temporary food establishment permit, the district said in a statement. This is bureaucratese for, “Don’t blame me. I’m just following the rules, regardless of how absurd the outcome.”

At last Saturday’s children’s market, my wife bought homemade gingersnap cookies. Don’t tell the health district. Apparently, the bureaucrats didn’t know about that event.

Now, perhaps some people will recoil in horror that a child was selling cookies without a government permission slip. But I did what a normal person would do — I ate one. For the record, it was delicious. So delicious that I decided to eat another one while I wrote this.

As adults, we should be free to decide whether or not to buy cookies and hot chocolate from a child.

Society should encourage children to practice entrepreneurship rather than ensure they learn firsthand how bureaucratic red tape crushes business owners.

Victor Joecks’ column appears in the Opinion section each Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Contact him at vjoecks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4698. Follow @victorjoecks on X.