Multnomah County Apologizes for Closing 7-Year-Old Julie Murphy's Lemonade Stand

(Aug.6) -- The Food and Drug Administration apparently has only enough food investigators to check out about 2 percent of the questionable seafood coming into West Coast ports from the Far East and India.

There are nowhere near enough USDA inspectors to ensure that the pigs, poultry and cattle being shoved through slaughter houses are as disease free as the feds and Congress want.

But not every jurisdiction has dropped the ball.

Just ask Julie Murphy.

Last week, the 7-year-old set up a lemonade stand at a local arts fair in Portland, Ore.

Just as business started picking up, two Multnomah County health inspectors surrounded her and asked the young entrepreneur for her $120 temporary restaurant license.

The clipboard-toting fighters of food poisoning told Julie and her mom, Maria Fife, that they would have to shut down or face a $500 fine. Thursday, the county apologized for the aggressive inspectors.

Julie and her mom were stunned by last week's edict, as were those operating the booths nearby.

Mom told The Oregonian newspaper that Julie was very careful about making the brew.

She cleaned her hands with sanitizer, used a scoop to handle the bagged ice and kept everything covered when it wasn't in use, Fife said.

Mom helped a tearful Julie take the bottled water, drink mixture and signs back to the car, and explained to her daughter that the inspectors where just doing their jobs.

But the story has a happy ending. After careful consideration (and media attention), Multnomah County decided that neither Julie nor other kids would need to pay the $120 licensing fee to run their lemonade stands..

The county's top elected official, Jeff Cogen, told The Oregonian that the inspectors were "following the rule book" but that the rules were intended for adults running food businesses.

"A lemonade stand is a classic, iconic American kid thing to do," he said. "I don't want to be in the business of shutting that down."