Letter to the Tattler: My Emeryville Small Business Is Under Attack
Emeryville Resident and Small Business Owner, Empress
Small Business in Emeryville Should Be Encouraged
What's Happening Here is Discouragement
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I run a small, street-facing live-work business on Sherwin Avenue at The Emery, on the historic grounds of the former Sherwin-Williams site, where I craft and sell artisan cookies through my company, Choc’late Mama Cookie Co. What I’ve built is more than a cookie business. It’s a community-centered space rooted in culture, wellness, and connection. It’s also exactly the kind of neighborhood-serving storefront the City of Emeryville envisioned when approving this mixed-use development: active, locally owned, and engaged with the public sidewalk.
But since October, my ability to operate has been under coordinated attack.
A neighboring resident, Emeryville Housing Committee member James Brooks Jessup, who occupies an adjacent live-work unit, has led an effort to challenge the legitimacy of my business. He and a group of aligned neighbors have repeatedly claimed, falsely, that I am operating an illegal restaurant rather than a permitted retail cookie business. These claims have been submitted to the City, Alameda County, and property management, triggering investigations and enforcement actions.
The truth is straightforward: I have the permits required to operate my business. The City has confirmed this. And yet, a pattern has emerged where complaint-driven enforcement continues to escalate, regardless of verified compliance.
Through documents obtained via the California Public Records Act, I have uncovered what appears to be a coordinated campaign of complaints, surveillance, and targeted reporting. The result has been an environment of ongoing scrutiny and intimidation, one that no small business owner should have to endure simply for operating within the bounds of the law.
At the center of the current dispute is an attempt by Alameda County to reclassify my business under a Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operation (MEHKO) permit. This designation is intended for home-based food businesses not street-facing, mixed-use storefronts like mine. Applying it to my business would impose a cap of just 90 sales per week, effectively making it impossible to sustain operations or grow.
I declined this misclassification and requested a designation that accurately reflects my live-work storefront model. At present, no such classification exists.
This is not just about my business. It reveals a larger systemic failure: outdated regulatory frameworks are being used to govern modern, hybrid business models; enforcement is being driven by complaints rather than facts; and there are no meaningful protections in place for small business owners facing bad-faith reporting.
Despite bringing these concerns forward, I have received little support from the City of Emeryville and no support from property management at The Emery. In fact, I was forced to remove my signage and outdoor seating from the patio outside my unit that is clearly designed for such use. With the exception of Councilmember Kalimah Priforce, there has been no meaningful intervention to address the harm being caused or to protect my ability to operate as intended within this development.
What’s at stake is more than one business. If I am forced out, it is likely that my unit will revert to residential-only use, leaving a dark storefront where there was once community engagement. That outcome would directly contradict the City’s stated vision for The Emery as a vibrant, activated neighborhood with locally serving retail at its core.
Instead, I now face housing insecurity, loss of income, and the erosion of a business I have spent years building while the systems meant to support small entrepreneurs remain silent or ineffective.
When I moved into The Emery, I was told these storefronts were meant for businesses like mine locally rooted, community-driven, and accessible to the public. That is exactly what Choc’late Mama Cookie Co. represents.
The question now is whether Emeryville will honor that promise.
BIO: A single-mother and lifelong native of 94608, Empress founded Choc’late Mama Cookie Co., now the only Afro-Indigenous woman-led cookie café and community hub in Emeryville. For over a decade, her work has used culinary art and hospitality as both nourishment and medicine, intentionally creating spaces that cultivate connection across the Bay Area and beyond.
This moment is about more than cookies, she says. It’s about who gets to exist, create, and thrive in spaces that claim to support small, local business, and what happens when that support is tested.
Choc'late Mama Cookies' mailing address is 4310 Hubbard Street but pedestrian access is on Sherwin Avenue between Hubbard and Horton streets. Phone: (510) 846-1229
Follow @chocolatemamacookies on Instagram to witness the community, culture, and consistency behind her work.
