11-year-old girl's cupcake business shut down by Madison County officials

[The Straight Story]

After-school jobs are tougher to keep, apparently, than they used to be.

On Sunday, a Belleville News-Democrat story featured 11-year-old Chloe Stirling of Troy, Ill., a sixth-grader at Triad Middle School who makes about $200 a month selling cupcakes.

On Monday, the long arm of the law — in this case, the Madison County Health Department — put an end to that.

“They called and said they were shutting us down,” Chloe’s mother, Heather Stirling, told the Post-Dispatch.

Furthermore, Heather Stirling said the officials told her that for Chloe to continue selling cupcakes, the family would have to “buy a bakery or build her a kitchen separate from the one we have.”

...

Heather Stirling said she wasn’t looking for special consideration for her daughter and would be willing to get the necessary licenses and permits to run a business.

“But a separate kitchen? Who can do that?” Heather Stirling said.

http://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/columns/joe-holleman/year-old-girl-s-cupcake-business-shut-down-by-madison/article_bc209e8a-bb8f-5b6f-b6cc-09852ad2e458.html

[YarnAddict]

1. Ordinarily I would think this was overreach

But in this case, I think it could be a health issue.

[Shrike47]

2. She's conducting a business and should play by the health and safety rules.

[JCMach1]

3. get thee to a farmer's market

Does Illinois have a cottage food operation law?

[supernova]

4. Depends on local ordinances

But the County health Dept is correct about sanitary conditions and protecting public health. We don't get sick in our own kitchens because we are familiar with our own germs. But when you bring everybody else's germs together....

Here, with some modifications, you can use your existing kitchen for low risk foods like cupcakes. That means using nonporous surfaces, separate fridges and storage areas from your personal food and prep areas. I guess where they are, you can't do that.

And everybody has to take ServSafe, the ARA course outlining federal safety standards for preparing and serving food.

[Ikonoklast]

5. As it should be. There is a public health risk involved.

Commercial baking in an uninspected facility is an illegal enterprise, matters not how old you are.

[FSogol]

7. But her cupcakes only have cute, little germs!

[displacedtexan]

6. California relaxed the home baking biz laws last year.

You get the local biz licenses, and an inspector makes sure your kitchen area meets standards. And they'll teach you how to keep your kitchen area clean.

[LittleBlue]

8. Stupid rule. Buying a bakery, really?

Government gone too far.

[Ikonoklast]

11. Would you eat dinner at an uninspected restaurant?

[LittleBlue]

12. You can inspect someone's kitchen

The only incident of food poisoning in my entire life came from a chain restaurant which no doubt has their kitchens regularly inspected.

Telling someone to buy a new kitchen/bakery is ludicrous and doesn't change the level of food safety at all.

[Ikonoklast]

14. Anecdote is not data.

[LittleBlue]

15. You ignored what I said, which is just a statement of fact

Merely buying a separate kitchen doesn't ensure anything. It's about the practices one uses in the kitchen, keeping food warm or cooled, and cooking it thoroughly.

[RKP5637]

9. Yeah, I can see the logic of this. She is basically running a business. We would expect

a business selling for profit to the public to follow established health code rules, so to me at least, this falls under those guidelines. Suppose the age was 56 or whatever.

[sendero]

10. Tell ya what..

.... I bet I could walk into her kitchen and create a clean/sanitary assessment as a baseline.

Then I bet I could walk into 20 local restaurant kitchens and most of them would not even meet that baseline.

I think people who want to do this should be able to make some sort of disclosure "baked at my home" and let the consumer decide. It's not like the people buying these cupcakes think they are being baked at a Hostess bakery.

It's idiocy.

[1000words]

17. Bingo!

These regulations and laws are by design. And it is not to encourage small business enterprise.

[Fumesucker]

13. Oh come on, you know where this one is going, fucking mistletoe all over again

[gerogie2]

16. And if one of her custmers gets food poisioning

People would be crying, "How could the State allow a 11 yr old girl the ability to sell food?"
The reason you have to have a separate kitchen is because of the danger of bacteria. Before these rules were made many people became sick from vendors selling home made food on the streets.

[Vashta Nerada]

18. Sensationalistic news.

Sensationalist in the way that we're supposed to get in an uproar over this because it's an 11 year old girl. But in reality, I'm siding with the health department.