Jul 15, 2026
You know it very well. The sound of ice clinking against glass on a hot July morning, mixed with the proud chatter of little entrepreneurs counting out pocket change. A hand-drawn sign, a wooden card table and a plastic pitcher of fresh lemonade — it’s the quintessential picture of a Canadian childhood summer.
On a beautiful morning in Ottawa, that picture-perfect scene was playing out exactly as it has for generations. Cyclists were pulling over, coins were jingling into a jar and two little girls were beaming behind their counter. Then, a uniformed official walked up, pointed to the table and ordered the entire operation shut down because they lacked a commercial business permit.
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It reads like a heavy-handed movie trope about government red tape, but it was a very real standoff that took place right here in Canada.
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Ten years ago, sisters Eliza and Adela Andrews became the faces of a national conversation regarding over-regulation. On July 3, 2016, a junior conservation officer with the National Capital Commission (NCC) ordered the girls — who were just five and seven years old at the time — to dismantle their roadside stand. They were selling drinks for $1 a glass along Colonel By Drive during a popular summer event known as Sunday Bikedays.
The public reaction was swift, fierce and entirely predictable.
The fallout of being heavy handed
The story quickly went viral, prompting a massive wave of public criticism for the federal agency tasked with managing capital region lands. It was a classic public relations nightmare. According to internal agency emails obtained later by journalists, even the highest levels of the organization panicked. Former NCC chief executive officer Mark Kristmanson expressed immediate concern in an email to his chief of staff and obtained by the CBC that “the NCC officers appear heavy-handed,” though he also fretted about potential liability if something happened to children on federal property.
A board member at the time, Kay Stanley, tried to make light of the sudden national media storm, writing in an email also obtained by the CBC that “it really must have been a slow news day in many media offices!”
The organization quickly realized that hiding behind strict bylaws was a losing strategy. The agency issued a formal public apology, admitting that while the officer acted in good faith to enforce federal land-use rules, the situation could have been handled differently. In an official statement, the NCC noted that “children’s lemonade stands are a time-honoured summer tradition that contributes to a lively Capital and the NCC wants to encourage these activities whenever possible.”
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Turning sour lemons into a sweet policy pivot
To make amends, the NCC quickly granted the sisters a special permit to return to their grassy median along Colonel By Drive the following weekend. The permission came with a few very specific, uniquely bureaucratic conditions. The girls were required to carry the paperwork with them at all times, donate their immediate proceeds to charity and ensure their hand-drawn signage was displayed “in both official languages, English and French of equal prominence.”
The sisters used the opportunity to raise money for Camp Quality, a non-profit organization that supports children with cancer and their families.
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More importantly, the high-profile blunder forced a permanent shift in how government bodies view micro-businesses run by youth. The very next year, the NCC established a formal young entrepreneurs program. The initiative allows Canadians between the ages of five and 17 to apply for free, streamlined permits to operate kiosks and stands along the capital’s parkways during active transportation days.
Keeping summer’s sweetest tradition alive
A decade later, the Andrews sisters are now teenagers who look back on the incident as a strange badge of honour. Eliza, now 17, and Adela, 15, have even used the experience on their resumes. Speaking with CBC a decade later, Eliza recalled: “It was pretty crazy how we were able to have such an impact on our community. We were only five and seven at the time.”
Current NCC chief executive officer Tobi Nussbaum, who was a city councillor when the incident occurred, reflects on the event as a necessary learning experience for a large public institution. He explained that the story resonated because it had all the right ingredients: “Lemonade, children, summertime and a public organization… that is big and at times is imperfect,” he told CBC. He added that the resulting youth permit system strikes “the right balance between being totally ‘open door’ ... but also making sure that we’re being fair to existing leaseholders.”
Today, kids can still set up their little lemonade stands without any worry. Thanks to a bit of community support and two determined little girls, a sweet summer tradition got to keep its place in the sun.
On any warm weekend, those familiar sounds carry on just as they always have. The ice still clinks, pocket change still jingles, and kids still proudly shout “lemonade!” as they wave their hand-drawn signs at passing neighbours. It’s a timeless piece of childhood that never really disappeared from Ottawa — and now, it has a safe place to stay.
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Leslie Kennedy served as an editor at Thomson Reuters and for Star Media Group, followed by a number of years as a writer and editor and content manager in marketing communications, before returning to her editorial roots. She is a graduate of Humber College’s post-graduate journalism program and has been a professional writer and editor ever since.
Managing Money • Jul 13
