Free Republic

The government has pulled the plug on an 11-year-old Illinois baker’s oven. A day after a local newspaper ran a story about the young and ambitious Chloe Stirling, who operated a cupcake business out of her parents’ kitchen, the local health department came calling. “They called and said they were shutting us down,” Heather Stirling, Chloe’s mother, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Officials told Stirling Chloe could continue selling cupcakes on the condition that the family “buy a bakery or build her a kitchen separate from the one we have.” “Obviously, we can’t do that,” Heather Stirling told reporters. “We’ve...

11 year old Chloe Stirling got some great accolades from her local newspaper for the cupcake business she had started out of her parents' kitchen. Unfortunately the local health department took another view and shut her down. The sticking point was that not only did she lack the proper permits and licenses to run a food business, but according to local and state law she would have to either own her own bakery or have a kitchen separate from that of her parents to continue cooking cupcakes for money. Since this was clearly impossible, Stirling is no longer able to...