Politician Calls Cops On Kids' Cupcake Sale
NEW CASTLE, N.Y. (CBS 2/WCBS 880/1010 WINS) -- Call it a "cupcake crime."
Two 13-year-old boys from Westchester County set up what they thought was a simple, harmless bake sale.
That is, until the police showed up.
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WCBS 880's Catherine Cioffi reports
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1010 WINS Reporter Al Jones reports on the cupcake shutdown
Last month, Andrew DeMarchis and his friend Kevin Graff and two other boys decided to sell cupcakes to pick up spending money. They sold the cupcakes in Gedney Park in the town of New Castle, near Chappaqua. But when they went back the following Saturday the police said, wait a minute.
"And we had sold cupcakes, a whole bake sale, the week before and we had made a lot of money. And then we decided to go back the next weekend and do it again," DeMarchis told CBS 2's Pablo Guzman.
"A police officer pulled up and he told us to shut down our bake sale 'cause we didn't have a permit."
"I was shocked. I couldn't believe it. We didn't know we needed a permit. We're really rules followers and had we known we would have had one," added Suzanne DeMarchis, Andrew's mother.
Someone had complained to police about the boys using a public park to make money for themselves and not a charity. The Journal News newspaper found out through the Freedom of Information Act that that person was town board member Michael Wolfensohn. He refused Guzman's request for an interview. New Castle Superintendent of Recreation and Parks Robert Snyder said that while a permit would normally have been required, there are allowances.
"Again, if it was kids, maybe I would charge them a dollar or something, if they were trying to make money for college or something like that. Just to teach them there's a cost of doing business," Snyder said.
"We didn't expect to get as far as we did. We thought that it would be something that we would talk about and we would never actually do it," Andrew DeMarchis said.
Andrew said they were going to take the profits and put them back into the business -- not just spending money.
Warren Buffett, look out.
Normally, a permit for selling in the park requires a million dollar insurance guarantee. But the recreation superintendent now says something could be worked out.
Andrew's mother said she'll give the superintendent a call.
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