A Wyoming Girl Scout and her mother were hit with $400 in fines for selling cookies from a stand in her grandparents driveway.
Erica Fairbanks McCarroll and her 13-year-old daughter Emma were selling cookies after school on Erica’s parents property along Main Street in Pinedale when they were approached by a code enforcement officer on March 13.
Fairbanks McCarroll told DailyMail.com the woman, who was driving the town’s animal control vehicle and did not identify herself as code enforcement, told them they could not block the sidewalk.
The mother and daughter pulled back their stand and continued to sell cookies for two more days before the woman showed up again and handed them citations.
‘We sold for about 1 hour and 30 minutes when she showed up and handed me 3 parking tickets totaling $400,’ Fairbanks McCarroll said on Facebook.
‘I responded that I had complied with what she had asked and had moved off the sidewalk. She said the tickets aren’t just for being on the sidewalk and that this is for your daughter’s safety.’
Fairbanks McCarroll was given a $100 fine for parking on the sidewalk, a $150 fine for unlawful obstruction and another $150 fine for a municipal code that said there needs to be at least five feet of unobstructed passage on the sidewalk.
‘Sometimes I just think that government can be unreasonable. It wasn’t reasonable to be fined $400 for selling cookies in front on my grandparent’s property,’ Emma told Cowboy State Daily, who photographed the mother daughter duo.
Emma, who has been a Girl Scout since she was six years old, was aiming to sell 1,200 boxes of cookies so she could receive a $350 credit for summer camp.
Fairbanks McCarroll said, ‘She did not identify herself as Code Enforcement, she did not say what I was doing was illegal, she didn’t say she would or even could write me a ticket, she didn’t even say I couldn’t sell there anymore. All she said really was you shouldn’t block the sidewalk.’
When the code enforcement officer told her the Fairbanks probably would not like her blocking their property, Fairbanks McCarroll said: ‘I responded with ‘the Fairbanks are my parents and they don’t care.’ She then said ‘okay well I just recommend you don’t block the sidewalk’ and left.’
The town of Pinedale released a statement insisting the officer was acting under official capacity when she approached Fairbanks McCarroll and warned her several times to move before issuing the citations.
Hellbound and Down 