Car Washes

6/9/2014

Raise your hand if you have ever had your car washed by some type of  youth group?  Oh, lot's of waving arms I see.

Beginning in the spring, but certainly by summer, you will see bouncy teenagers (girls generally), waving signs urging you to pull into a gas station, or some other place that has water.  We have in the past, stopped and allowed these teens to wash our car.  Their enthusiasm makes up for the fair to middling job they do.  

In counties around here, government has put a cabosh on washing cars by youth groups.  The environmental groups are looking to cut down on pollution that reaches the Chesapeake Bay., by limiting polluted runoff in efforts to clean up the Bay.  I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure, in the big picture, that these car washes which occur only periodically, can not be the biggest polluter to the Bay.

The government will kindly allow the car washes to continue if they are held in a field, or partnering with a commercial car wash.  And, why I ask would a car wash business allow teenagers to wash cars on their property?  By doing that, they would likely lose some business, because let's face it the teens are charging next to nothing for washing the cars.

And, as for washing in a field, who thought that that was a good idea?  Seen any hoses sitting around in fields when you drive by?  Nope, I didn't think so.

Apparently, in Virginia there are several enforcement options if groups are caught washing cars.  First, there is a warning but progressing to a fine of $500 or more for repeated violations.

It's regulations such as this that make me long for the 60's, when life was simpler and big or little government wasn't breathing down the necks of everything and everybody.

P