Shuttered lemonade stand has a happy ending for Whitby, Ont. boy

On Tuesday, Corbin Potter, 9, and his family set up a lemonade stand — inside Whitby's Baton Rouge restaurant.

The indoor lemonade stand was a triumph for the young autistic entrepreneur who was raising money for Sick Kids Hospital.

On Canada Day, a disgruntled female neighbour, complaining that Corbin was shouting to passersby to promote his annual lemonade stand, called the cops — after she tried to buy Corbin off with $5. When they arrived, the police tried to shut down the stand because the Potters didn't have a permit.

Baton Rouge's business development manager Ryan Grant read about Corbin's stand and decided to take action.

"Everyone is pretty excited about it," Grant said of hosting Corbin's stand at the restaurant. “We’ve had donations from staff, our head office and the franchisees are going to match whatever is raised so we can triple up whatever the Potter family can raise.”

Baton Rouge also sold lemonade in some of its GTA locations with the proceeds of those sales going to Sick Kids.

"I appreciate that we can do this," said Corbin’s mother, Dawn Potter. "We can now turn to Corbin and say, 'You're still able to raise money for the hospital that saved your cousins' lives.'"

"Sick Kids Hospital is near and dear to our hearts. Their cousins had heart surgery there — they wouldn’t be here without Sick Kids — and that’s why they chose to do the lemonade stand, so it’s awesome they’re going to do such a huge thing to help out," she added.

Potter told the Toronto Sun that her son has learned a valuable lesson about the kinds of strangers.

"Corbin has been so touched, he was almost in tears," she said. "He's received cards from people telling him he's their hero."