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An Alabama mother was shocked when she received a call from the United States Department of Labor over her son's lemonade stand. Cristal Johnson said that her son wanted to go to Disney World, so she worked with him to set up a lemonade stand to earn some money for the trip.
"One day, he asked to go to Disney World," she remembered. "I was just kind of joking around with him, telling him, 'Let me teach you how to earn a buck since you think money grows on trees,'" Johnson told AL.com.
However, Johnson also wanted to help other kids in the neighborhood learn about running a business and customer service, so she posted on Facebook, offering an "apprenticeship" to two local kids.
"I will let them work with Cam on communicating with customers, giving and receiving payments, and good manners. They will each receive $20 at the end of their shift," Johnson wrote.
That post seems to have gotten her in trouble because somebody reported her to the Alabama Department of Labor, claiming she was illegally hiring children.
"Some miserable soul thought it be a good idea to have it shut down, so with that being said.. the child event I was trying to have is canceled!!" she wrote on Facebook. "I think it is disgusting, hateful, and downright sad for a person to find negative in what I was trying to accomplish!"
The Department of Labor released a statement claiming the issue wasn't with the lemonade stand. Instead, the problem was that Johnson was offering to pay children to work at the stand with her son.
"This is an LLC with professional transportation and distribution," a spokesperson from the department said. "Kids that age can volunteer for their church or other non-profit, but a 6-year-old cannot work for a for-profit business. She is free to employ her child at her lemonade business, but no other children under the age of 14. The business has faced no penalties and was not threatened with any penalties."
Despite facing no penalties, Johnson is still upset that somebody complained and took away a chance for other kids to learn some basic lessons about business and customer service.
"Needless to say, I was very shocked and saddened by the fact that anyone found wrong in what I was trying to do. I was trying to do a good thing, give back to my community, and to find out that someone insinuated that I was trying to labor minors, that was…it was pretty sad," Cristal told Fox & Friends First.