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Comment by ajam1507 | Hacker News Reader

I hate that this needs to be said, but giving kids free food is not illegal.

This requires many asterisks, as once you hit any appreciable size of "giving out food" you tend to hit tons of local ordinance about food safety, permits, and just general distrust of directly interacting with other people's kids at a playground (depending on the age we are talking about, but since we said playground, I'm assuming pretty young).

You don't need all the asterisks if you don't stretch the metaphor beyond its breaking point.

I'm not stretching it at all. The context was McDonalds, and the added context was giving food to children at a playground. I'm completely bounded on that context.

To add, little children have been arrested for having lemonade stands in the USA before.

Source?

> giving kids free food is not illegal

It’s not. But if you’re giving a kid “100” burgers “in one sitting” without the parent’s explicit sign-off, you are probably liable for damages.

If you believe that, go set up a "Free Candy!" stand at a local playground and see how long before the police show up.

> go set up a "Free Candy!" stand at a local playground and see how long before the police show up

This is a sign of a broken community. Handing out candy is absolutely fine as long as the kids are old enough to understand their own allergies and limits.

But kids don't know their own allergies and limits, because they're kids. That's the point.

> kids don't know their own allergies and limits, because they're kids. That's the point

Counterpoint: Halloween.

Most kids are competent enough to manage their survival in such circumstances. Some are not. And sometimes it’s not the parents’ fault. But if a community is raising a generation too imbecilic to choose if they can eat chocolate, their life path is sort of already written.

Halloween happens once a year, that’s a big reason it’s tolerated. Also, many parents do provide guidance/control over how much and how fast the candy is eaten. Because otherwise everyone suffers.

The better comparison is what if there was a bottomless bucket of candy in your 10 year olds room all the time.

If the food contains heroin, it's illegal. There's a line somewhere.

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