PINEDALE — No one likes a story where a Girl Scout doesn’t win a prize for selling cookies.
But that’s just what nearly happened when a by-the-book municipal code officer in Pinedale slapped a Girl Scout and her mom hundreds of dollars in fines for selling cookies.
Emma McCarroll, 13, almost didn’t meet her sales goal because the code enforcement officer was an expert on the rules of where a Girl Scout in Pinedale can stand — and where her mom could park their car while selling them.
The spat between the city and the Girl Scout and her mom began when the code enforcement officer asked the mom, Erica Fairbanks McCarroll, if she had the landowner’s permission to sell from the city’s Pine Avenue spot and park a vehicle in a driveway there.
Puzzled, Fairbanks McCarroll didn’t answer the officer’s question because the spot where she parked was in the driveway of her parents.
A Full Investigation
The officer never made the connection on who owned the driveway and the people using the driveway to sell Girl Scout Cookies.
“I personally don’t think she ever understood that I was related to the Fairbanks, my parents who own the driveway,” Fairbanks McCarroll said.
Nonetheless, the officer snapped photographs of their sales activity between March 13 and 15 to prove that Emma McCarroll had set up the stand, and mom had parked illegally in the driveway, which straddled the public sidewalk on Pine Avenue.
The issue became more problematic because Pine Street — the main thoroughfare through this tiny town of 2,000-plus — is essentially controlled by the Wyoming Department of Transportation, which claims ownership of the property, and activity like selling cookies infringed on WYDOT’s right of way of the street.
“You can’t sell within the WYDOT right of way,” Pinedale Mayor Matt Murdock told Cowboy State Daily.
The mom “was told and she refused to move,” said Murdock, adding that the city was following the rules on code enforcement.
Forget that Emma had her heart set on going to summer camp at Red Lodge, Montana. She went last year and loved it.
She was able to attend because she hit her sales goal.
Born Saleswoman
Selling cookies is no sweat for Emma. She’s a natural born saleswoman.
This year Emma wanted to do the same thing. She smiled a lot and held up the boxes to passersby along Pine — on the same spot, but not with any run-ins with the city like this year.
Emma sold Caramel Delites, Caramel Chocolate Chips and Thin Mints. In fact, she offered up the entire line of cookies and sold out.
“Sometimes I just think that government can be unreasonable,” Emma McCarroll said. “It wasn’t reasonable to be fined $400 for selling cookies in front on my grandparent’s property.”
Last year, she set up the same card table in the private driveway of her “grandma and granddaddy” at 515 Pine St., where a dirt road between the U.S. Post Office and Veteran’s Memorial Park leads along Pine Creek to the north of the street.
It’s next to the monument of grazing pronghorn in the park.
Hidden from view in the cluster of trees near the park, Emma's grandparents are renovating an old church.
She went to summer camp last year by selling more than 1,200 boxes of cookies for her home Girl Scout Troop No. 1644 in Rock Springs, where her parents previously lived until two years ago when they moved to Pinedale.
They may be having second thoughts.
It seemed like a good idea to sell cookies in the same spot again in the same driveway.
Nope, Not This Time
But this year, Emma saw her hopes of going to Timbercrest Camp near the Wyoming and Montana border, nestled in the foothills of the Beartooth Mountains, nearly fade away.
There’d be no horseback riding, archery or whitewater rafting with her friends.
In a report filed with the city, the officer claimed that she had instructed Emma and her mom to pack up the cookie boxes and move everything over to the old town hall parking lot at 210 W. Pine St. where it would be safer and legal.
But the move didn’t happen quickly enough, and the code enforcement officer slapped Erica McCarroll with three citations.
The first was for unlawful obstruction of the road and sidewalk without receiving permission of the Pinedale City Council. The second citation was for “exception,” meaning that McCarroll didn’t leave 5 feet of unobstructed, continuous passage on the sidewalk as allowed by WYDOT.
The third citation was for parking a vehicle on the sidewalk.
Grand total of the fines: $400. But then came the legal bill.
Fairbanks McCarroll argued that the fines were unwarranted, especially since her daughter set up the cookie sales operation in the driveway of her parents, and her vehicle was parked in the driveway of her parents.
She paid $508 to hire a lawyer from Bing PC on South Freemont Avenue in Pinedale.
Two of the citations were eventually dismissed, leaving her to pay the $150 fine for “unlawful obstruction.”
Fairbanks McCarroll’s advice: Beware of the spot where you sell Girl Scout Cookies. It could end up costing $658 in legal bills and having to pay a citation for violating city code.
“Maybe there isn’t anything else to be done for me, but maybe they’ll write tickets that are accurate and legitimate in the future,” Fairbanks McCarroll said. “Maybe she (the officer) has something against Girl Scouts.”
Pat Maio can be reached at pat@cowboystatedaily.com.
