An 11-year-old in Ramona has learned a hard lesson about running a roadside business. His family says his lemonade stand was stolen over the weekend, and it was all caught on camera.

The thief got away after stealing the boy’s lemonade stand on Sunday evening.

You may not know when to teach your kids the good guys from the bad, but for Kery Rader, it was eight days after her son Liam’s 11th birthday.

“That’s wrong. You know it’s not yours. Its not free. It belongs to somebody,” Rader said.

In the security video, you see Liam leaning his head against the utility pole, expressing his profound sadness. But Liam wasn’t the only one recorded on the Diamond D Feed and Supply security camera. The moment before this heartbreak was the reason for it.

“Why would this happen? Why would he do that? Take from a kid that is just trying to sell lemonade,“ Liam said.

On the video, you see a man in a silver pickup, passing through a busy intersection when it caught his eye. With little hesitation, he turned the truck around and pulled alongside Liam’s lemonade stand.

“About halfway through the video, you can see he picks the sign up, and he reads it,“ Rader said.

“In really big letters, it said ‘Lemonade.’ Below it, said, ‘Small $1, large is $3. Saving for a dirt bike. Anything helps. Thank you’ with a smiley face at the end,” Liam said.

The man tossed the sign, took a quick look around, then loaded the lemonade stand in the back of his truck.

Liam had paid the hundred dollars for the table and chairs from his earnings. He has been selling lemonade at the corner of D and Fifth Street for about a year and a half. Everybody who lives in the homes nearby know who he is. But no one seems to know who stole his stand.

“Someone who is rude and selfish and has no feelings for other people and only cares about himself,“ Liam said.

The lemonade stand disappeared down the road in the bed of the pickup. Liam waved, but it was no use. In the time it took to run home and get more cups, about two minutes, his business was gone.

“Ultimately, I hope that he doesn’t use this experience to think all people are like that and there’s not good people in this world,” Rader said.

The sadness of Liam’s misfortune spread through the neighborhood. It was met with support he wasn’t expecting. A fellow business owner sent him $100 and a card that read: “Keep smiling. Don’t let this that happened let you down.”

So keep your eyes peeled for Liam’s new lemonade stand and the person behind the wheel of the silver pickup. The security video was turned over to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department. So far, there have been no arrests or leads.

SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — A local program that offers free rideshare services to seniors in San Diego County is in need of more volunteers.

Jewish Family Service of San Diego’s On the Go program currently helps more than 2,000 seniors in need with transportation. Volunteers assist local seniors by driving them in their own cars to the grocery store, the doctor’s office or other essential destinations.

“As we know, the population here in San Diego is definitely trending upwards with older adults in our community. So we see a great need for folks who want to stay living independently in their homes but maybe who can no longer drive,” said Sunni Robertson, Director of Volunteer Engagement, Jewish Family Service of San Diego.

As Robertson explains, the program not only provides a critical service, but also helps combat loneliness for many older San Diegans.

“This is a really wonderful, mutually beneficial volunteer opportunity for both our older adults and our volunteers,” she said.

Robertson says volunteers are provided with mileage reimbursement. You can learn more about getting involved in the program online.

ABC 10News also spoke with Betty Carroll, a volunteer who has been driving with the program for seven years. For the last two years, she’s been helping Mark Passavanti, who is visually impaired.

“Helping Mark makes me feel good,” said Carroll. “It’s about making a good friend more than anything else.”

Carroll takes Passavanti and his service dog Luca to the grocery store and appointments weekly.

“Betty is always there on time and comes and gets me and it’s just a wonderful ride and a wonderful time,” said Passavanti. “It gives me freedom and makes me feel like a normal guy.”

Following last week’s lithium battery fire resulting in evacuation orders and warnings at a San Diego Gas & Electric battery storage facility in Escondido and the lithium-ion fire at an Otay Mesa storage complex that occurred earlier this year, the County Board of Supervisors will consider putting a pause on future such facilities.

The action in front of the supervisors on Wednesday will present several options to the board. The body can request additional fire suppression technical reports and/or include new disclosure requirements to make any new battery energy storage systems go “above and beyond” current code requirements.

Additionally, they will have the choice to put a temporary moratorium on the acceptance of new BESS applications or adopt an urgency ordinance requiring new facilities to use modular designs and follow National Fire Protection Association guidelines.

The item was already scheduled for the board but gained more urgency following the Thursday afternoon fire at the SDG&E facility. The fire was allowed to burn out by itself — per industry standard, a statement from the Escondido Fire Department read.

Just one of the site’s 24 cells caught fire.

While no one was injured by the fire, evacuation orders were issued to businesses in the largely industrial part of the city.

Another recent fire took place earlier this year by the border. Fire authorities in Otay Mesa also issued evacuation orders, as lithium-ion fires are notoriously difficult to extinguish. According to CalFire, the threat of potential poisonous vapors and explosions prompted the evacuation orders.

The moratorium the supervisors will discuss couldn’t come any sooner, some residents of Escondido say.

“Area residents are renewing their call for the county to issue a moratorium on building new lithium battery storage facilities in neighborhoods,” reads a statement from a group of citizens, including JP Theberge of the Elfin Forest Harmony Grove Town Council and Joe Rowley, a retired engineer and battery storage facility developer.

“The Escondido battery fire is unfolding in an industrial area away from homes and residences. However, it reinforces the concerns of residents that a project that is 10 times larger (the Seguro project) is being proposed, which would be surrounded by hundreds of homes and upwind from a hospital in northern San Diego County, near Escondido,” they write. “Despite the current fire being in an industrial area, hundreds of businesses were evacuated and many more were told to shelter-in-place. Schools located downwind were closed today as well.”

Should the supervisors elect the moratorium route, it could freeze the proposed AES’ Seguro storage project in Escondido, not far from where Thursday’s fire took place. This project would be capable of storing up to 320 megawatts or 1,280 megawatt hours worth of energy — several times larger than the facility where the fire continues to burn.

Without the Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) facilities, the county could have a difficult time meeting its climate goals.

The battery storage facilities are a component of the county’s respond to green energy, storing energy from renewable sources such as solar or wind to use as needed. They are intended as an alternative or at least a supplement to fossil fuel energies such as natural gas and oil.