It was irritating, but it was harmless. We rolled our eyes and moved the trash cans.
Then the real letter arrived.
It came in an official envelope with the city seal in the corner. I opened it standing in the kitchen and read it twice, because the first time my brain refused to understand it.
I was ordered to stop all commercial food operations on our property, effective immediately, pending a compliance review.
My bakery.
My heart was pounding so hard I had to sit down. I had food handler permits. I had a business license. I had passed every health inspection I’d ever had, some of them with comments about how clean my kitchen was.
But after a long afternoon of frantic phone calls, I found out what I didn’t have.
I didn’t have approval to use the converted garage itself for commercial activity. The room was fine. The permits for the work inside it were fine. But the zoning sign-off that allowed a residential garage to operate as a business had never been filed.
