Little Brendan Mulvaney, from Ballston Spa, N.Y., was doing what seven year-olds have been doing way before Matt and Becky and a long line of cousins were doing on the Cliff Walk in Newport, RI in the 70s: selling lemonade from a homemade stand. Aiding and abetting the cousins were shameless culprits: their grandparents.

Back in New York, a woman who identified herself as a state health inspector shut down the lemonade stand. Brendan needed a permit, she informed him.

Let’s hope Brendan remembers this when he goes to the voting booth 14 years from now.

New York can’t keep the subways from breaking down, its public housing has a lead-poisoning scandal, and Mr. Cuomo’s crony capitalists who received state subsidies were recently convicted of corruption.

But the Health Department is crackerjack at treating a 7-year-old selling lemonade like he’s dumping waste in our drinking water.

And they wonder why Americans don’t trust government.

Read more from the WSJ here.

And for all the young entrepreneurs who find themselves on the wrong side of the law. Country Time Lemonade has created Legal-Ade, a crack team ready to pay for lemonade stand permits and fines. Find out more at countrytimelegalade.com.