Neighbor turns sour on lemonade stand

Lily Warren, right, and her two younger sisters, Chloe and Sophie, have been in the beeswax business since 2009. The Littleton, Colorado, sisters make lip balm and lotion bars using the beeswax left over from their parents' hives. They call themselves the Sweet Bee Sisters.

Beekeeping is a hobby for the Warren family. "We're not very good at it," said Lisa Warren, the girls' mom. But once the girls discovered they could make lip balm and lotion bars from beeswax they collected, they researched recipes and got to work. They are currently working on adding soap to their product line.

Each sister has a role within the company, Lily Warren said. Lily, 13, takes charge of answering e-mails and filling orders, but she also helps with production.

Chloe, 12, is the recipe-keeper in the company and handles most of the manufacturing.

The littlest Sweet Bee Sister, 9-year-old Sophie, helps out whenever she can, Lily says. Sophie often handles labels and packaging.

The Sweet Bee Sisters currently offer five different flavors of lip balm, including strawberry and root beer.

Leila Kaufman, 9, started posting video reviews of tech toys for kids on her website, RethinkToys, and YouTube in 2012. Frustrated that all the toys she wanted were being reviewed by adults, she decided she would create a platform where she could voice her opinion about the toys available to kids.

Leila Kaufman visited the "Skylanders SWAP Force" launch event outside a toy store in Times Square, and interviewed Guha Bala, the president of Vicarious Visions, which developed the game. Bala was a young entrepreneur himself; he started Vicarious Visions with his brother while in high school.

In one of her RethinkToys videos, Leila Kaufman spoke with Gauri Nanda, the founder of Toymail, which allows kids to send and receive message via toy mailboxes.

Seven-year-old Scout Kingsley founded Happy Wear with her mom, Ashley, in 2013. Since then, the company has profited more than $1,500 in Etsy and marketplace sales, Ashley Kingsley said.

Happy Wear is a girls' accessory line with products that are bright, colorful and "exude happy."

"Scout is definitely the artistic director, telling me what looks good and what will sell," Ashley Kingsley said of her daughter.

Scout Kingsley says she's learned a lot about marketing and packaging. "I get better every time people order something," she said.

The De Armas sisters -- Leila, 13, Julia, 12, and Sophia, 3 -- started baking cupcakes in 2012 after they saw their father baking his "special cookies." They took 11 months to test the quality of their recipe, and the girls officially formed TresMarias Cupcakes this year.

The De Armas sisters usually sell their cupcakes online, through Instagram and Facebook, to friends and family. "We encouraged them to have a business like this simply because we saw that baking is truly a desire and a passion inside of them," said Leigh Cecilia F. De Armas, their mom. "The business became a tool for them to exercise their gifts and talents and work as a team for a purpose."

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• A neighbor complained that 12-year-old's lemonade stand was a nuisance


• The city of Dunedin has rallied around the boy's entrepreneurial spirit


• City manager said an investigation found the stand did not cause any nuisance

(CNN) -- In business, it's all about location, location, location. Even 12-year-old T.J. Guerrero knows that.

Since 2013, he has been manning a lemonade stand at the corner of Patricia Avenue and San Salvador Drive in Dunedin, Florida, about 25 miles west of Tampa. He lives a few houses down the street from the junction, but got permission from the owners of the corner house to set up shop with his homemade sign at the higher traffic area during summer breaks and after school during the school year.

But another neighbor on the street has been trying to put a squeeze on the kid's sweet operation, saying Guerrero's operation is a public nuisance.

Dunedin City Manager Rob DiSpirito told CNN that the first complaint was lodged by 61-year-old Doug Wilkey in 2013. In at least four e-mails to the city since then, Wilkey complained that Guerrero's stand caused excessive trash, traffic, noise, and affected the property value of his home, which is next door to where the stand is set up.

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"If this were a once a year event by a couple kids to earn a little money for a holiday or something, I would not have a problem with it," Wilkey wrote. "I am very worried about the value of my home, which is why I built in a residential area, not a business area."

A community police officer has been sent out at least twice to survey the claims, and found it to be a non-issue after polling neighbors.

"We respect his right to have an opinion and took it seriously enough to do an investigation," said DiSpirito, who added that there has only been one person who has submitted complaints.

This summer, when another complaint rolled in, DiSpirito once again inquired into the complaint.

"Same results, same investigation," DiSpirito said.

Since Wilkey's stand against the stand gained local and national attention, the city of about 37,000 has rallied behind the budding entrepreneur, including local radio personality Mike Calta of 102.5 The Bone.

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On Monday, the station surprised Guerrero and sent an employee to work the lemonade stand until he got home from school. It also urged listeners to pay the boy a visit.

"This is amazing, I definitely did not know they were doing this, and I just got a call from a friend saying they were, so I just ran over here and it's amazing," Guerrero told CNN affiliate WFTS.

The stand made an estimated $600 in two hours, according to WFTS.

"I think it's really good when young people get a chance to learn what it's like to earn some money for themselves," said Mayor Dave Eggers, who happens to live right around the corner from Guerrero.

Neighbors like him don't want to vilify Wilkey for complaining.

"Sometimes you just have to step back and get a little perspective," Eggers said.