Alison Ettel aka “Permit Patty”

The background on the situation.

Alison Ettel approached 8 year old girl and her aunt who were selling watter on the sidewalk outside of Alison’s apartment in San Francisco. When Alison approached them, she asked if the had sellers permit. Eventually Alison decided to call police to report the situation.

Girls aunt claims that the only reason Alison called police is because she targeted them for racial reasons. Alison claims that she was working in the apartment and could not concentrate because of girl loud calling out to people advertising her water.

There are couple of issues we can see here:

First, cultural difference. In Mexico, when people decide to sell food or products, they just setup a booth and sell, there is no permits, health inspection or taxation like here in US. So immigrants try to apply same  thought process of selling in the US. Unfortunately, sellers permits are required in US in order to sell in the streets.

Second, a bit of advice for Alison Ettel aka #PermitPatty,  Jennifer Schulte aka #BBQBecky  or anyone else who feels that the law is being broken

Don’t approach anybody and if you must call police, don’t do it in front of them. Go away and do it in private, unless you want to end up like Alison and Jennifer and have your lives ruined.