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The city of Chicago’s reputation for driving away business continues unabated. When city health inspectors visited a shared kitchen last week, they destroyed hundreds of dollars of food, then came back and did it again. All in the name of city licensing.

Chicago Tribune reporter Monica Eng was there, observing for an upcoming piece on shared kitchens. Her video and account of what happened describes a small business caught in a maze of rules and regulations in multiple city departments that ultimately do nothing but produce revenue for the city in the form of licensing fees.

Shared kitchens are a growing trend that allows independent operators a professional, sanitary and presumable legal space to produce food for catering or other related businesses. In this case, Kitchen Chicago has been legally licensed to operate making the facility responsible for  food safety issues. This seems reasonable and right, but the city of Chicago being what it is, the owners were later told the individual tenants also need to be licensed.

So Flora Lazar applied for a business license to operate Flora Confections, and use the Kitchen Chicago facilities. When city inspectors paid the required visit, they found food prepared elsewhere waiting to be used in Lazar’s candies. The inspectors then ripped open the bags of fruit puree dumped it in the garbage can and doused it with bleach. Fellow Kitchen Chicago tenant Sunday Dinner Club also had food destroyed, and the inspectors promised to return. Cue ominous music.

In all, enough food was destroyed to put close down Lazar’s small business for months.

Shared kitchens are supposed to operate as business incubators that will ultimately contribute the local economy. Eng appeared on WBEZ this morning to update the story and describe the Byzantine maze of rules and licenses that operators like Lazar get lost in when trying to do the right thing. The city says it’s about health concerns, but I wonder if it doesn’t have more to do with the short term payoff gleaned from license fees and fines. Kitchen Chicago has 11 tenants, and 12 licenses are worth more than one. And according to Eng, inspectors say if one violation is discovered fines can be issued to every tenant using the facilities, something she equates to the police pulling over a car for speeding and giving the driver and everyone in it a ticket. Again, 12 fines pay more than one. The person at the Health Department who came up with this must be seeing dollar signs.

There are no rules to refer to here, no codes to post to ensure compliance. Just a bunch of people trying to launch and grow their businesses and being thwarted by the city every step of the way. It’s crap like this that makes people move to the suburbs. Evanston requires one license per shared kitchen that covers all the tenants.  The City told WBEZ and the Tribune’s Eng that this
the prospect of losing small business to suburbs like evanston isn’t their primary concern health is. But no one is saying this food is going to hurt anyone, it’s a matter of paperwork and licensing. And fees.

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Being from Illinois is just too embarrassing. A year after our governor is indicted on federal corruption charges (and becomes a laughingstock on national TV), the primary to replace him has close to the lowest voter turnout in state history and in the end, we chose another cast of ridiculous characters.

And the most ridiculous of all is Scott Lee Cohen. Cohen is now the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor and it turns out, he’s been arrested on a domestic violence charge. His former girlfriend accused him of holding a knife to her neck and his ex-wife had an order of protection against him at one point. None of this came out during the campaign although his opponents say they told both candidates for the governor’s seat.

No one cared. Not even the voters care about who’s in office anymore, voter turnout is estimated at just 25 percent. Maybe we’re all just too exhausted by the unending parade of lousy candidates and even lousier officeholders. How else can we explain electing Cohen, a pawn broker with a controversial past who financed his own campaign?

The election isn’t until November and we still have 10 months of campaigning and scandal to endure. Cohen’s revelations are just the tip of the iceberg, this is Illinois after all. I just hope it doesn’t interfere with the current TV season. Rod Blagojevich is on “Celebrity Apprentice” next month.

Always funny, often insightful and usually spot on when it comes to candidates.

Steve Rhodes kindly runs down the pros and cons of each political hopeful. If he can’t be helpful, he is at least entertaining. As in this description of Green Party Candidate for U.S. Senate, LeAlan Jones:

LeAlan Jones says of the worst experience of his life “Right now, I don’t have anything;” of his biggest mistake, “I don’t have any;” and of his first date, “I don’t remember.

At least he’s well-prepared to answer questions before future investigating committees.

And this nifty conclusion about Dorothy Brown, Democratic candidate for Cook County Board President:

(She’s) an enigma wrapped in a mystery stuffed in an envelope of cash that no one can account for.

If you’re undecided, or just like to be told what to do, here’s the best guide of the day.

The Beachwood Reporter.

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It’s primary time in Illinois (and groundhog day), and I’ve awakened from a winter slumber. Around these parts, we go to the polls in February and I’ve always suspected it was designed to discourage residents from voting. This would go a long way toward explaining how we got into this mess.

Low voter turnout is business as usual here. I can’t recall a time when even close to half of registered voters turned out to vote, and that was to elect Barack Obama to the U.S. Senate. In 2006, just 25% cast a ballot.

Things were pretty quiet in my polling place this morning, a scene reportedly being played out across the city. If people aren’t angry enough about the antics of Todd Stroger, or don’t get how the Cook County board controls things like the county health system or Chicago’s sales tax, the highest in the country, then there’s really very little hope for reform or change.

Alan Tecktiel,  a Facebook friend from the old neighborhood put it quite succinctly:

“I will be voting for Todd Stroger for all open offices including governor and us senate every time I vote today. Please consider doing the same. This will send a clear message to Springfield and Washington that we are idiots who don’t deserve the right to vote.”

The polls close at 7 pm.

Here’s a little known fact, Chicago taxes employers a monthly fee for every employee. It’s called a head tax and just another reason for business to not locate here.

But now Mayor Daley is considering rescinding the tax. Just for new hires and just through 2011. The vote comes before City Council on Wednesday.

Daley hasn’t been very business friendly, unless you count big fat TIF handouts to places like Willis to renovate some space in the former Sears Tower, or “incentives” to Boeing to relocate here. Blocking Walmart from coming into Chicago and aligning with unions to a degree that Chicago’s convention business is fleeing to less expensive cities. There’s there’s the parking fiasco hurting small businesses particularly along the fringes of the city.

The tax doesn’t seem like a lot but it adds up and sends a message. At $4 per employee, per month, the head tax brings in about $22 million a year, according an editorial in the Chicago Tribune today.

A temporary suspension would be a modest move. A savings of $96 over two years isn’t likely to be the deciding factor when an employer weighs whether to add someone to the payroll.

But collectively the head tax is a significant factor when an employer considers whether to set up shop in Chicago, or the suburbs, or another state. The mayor could make this have real impact by pushing to eliminate the head tax, period.

For as long as the head tax has existed, it has been emblematic of the city’s mixed message to employers. In effect, it penalizes employers for putting someone on the payroll in Chicago. It penalizes them for expanding operations in the city. Add in the city’s notorious regulatory red-tape and the council’s penchant for punishing those who hire nonunion labor, and you have a city that encourages businesses to look elsewhere.

Daley has chosen to use TIF incentives to business rather than restructuring an egregious tax code. That’s another subject but addresses taxes that negatively effect the business climate here and employment opportunities is a much more direct way to incentive business. Kill the head tax and help Chicagoan’s get to work.

Kill the jobs tax — chicagotribune.com.