Wow, Chicago. Way to be wasteful and hurt local businesses all at the same time.

Last week, health inspectors destroyed thousands of dollars of cheese and gourmet granola bars owned by Sunday Dinner Club caterers and fruit purees owned by pastry chef Flora Lazar, who had purchased the peaches, pears, raspberries, and plums from a local farmers market that supplies many of the city’s high-end restaurants. But the health inspectors didn’t have any issue with the food itself – the problem, apparently, was licensing.

Chicago doesn’t yet have clearly defined rules for how smaller, shared kitchens should operate. It’s given both chefs and the kitchens themselves the runaround on exactly what licenses are required and who should apply for them. The current policy implies that every user of a shared kitchen space needs to apply for its own license, along with the associated health inspection – when you add up all those inspections, a small kitchen used by a handful of tiny businesses will need more inspections than the largest restaurants in the city. Add to that a new policy that states that any violation committed by one chef results in fines for all the chefs who use the space, and you’ve got a clusterf@#k waiting to happen. It’s potentially great revenue for Chicago, but thousands of dollars in fines from local businesses who may have had nothing to do with the actual violation.

“This puts me out of business for six months,” a despondent Lazar said. “I have done everything by the rules. Instead of making the food at home, which I could easily do, I sought out and rented space in a licensed kitchen. When [the city] finally said we could apply for a separate license, I did that. I paid my $600 and invited the inspectors here today.”

There’s irony in the fact that a writer from the Chicago Tribune was on hand during the destruction, working on a piece about “how well the city is adapting to Chicago’s evolving culinary scene full of niche caterers, small batch food artisans, specialty pastry chefs and supperclubs.” Way to turn a potential publicity coup into a public relations mess.

And did I mention the fact that the city refused to allow the chefs to give the food to a local shelter or even their children rather than having it completely destroyed?

Source: Chicago Tribune