Defending the Constitutional Right to do Business on Your Own Property

This case is about property rights, and defending economic freedom through the Kansas Constitution. The city of Ottawa and its home-based business restrictions criminalize normal household activities just because the owner wants to earn some money in the process. But the Kansas Constitution protects the right to earn an honest living, even at home.

The only thing standing between Ellen Finnerty and her dream business is the City of Ottawa, Kansas. Ms. Finnerty wants to use her own backyard to grow fruits and vegetables, keep a few beehives, and one day sell the produce and honey from it at the local farmer’s market.

Just as countless others have done for millennia—Ms. Finnerty wants to use her own backyard to grow fruits and vegetables, keep a few beehives, and one day sell the produce and honey from it at the local farmer’s market. But Ottawa flatly prohibits any home-based business not “conducted entirely within a dwelling unit” and all home-based business involving animals—which includes backyard beekeeping,

In other words, since gardens grow outside and since bees are animals, nobody in Ottawa is allowed to earn money from their garden or beehive. But the government can’t prohibit traditional and safe residential activities like gardening and backyard beekeeping just because you earn money from it.

What is the problem?

Ottawa’s home-based business prohibitions violate Ms. Finnerty’s right to earn an honest living, her right to use her own property for a reasonable residential purpose, and her right to be treated equally under the law.

The government should not be able to prohibit home-based businesses, which have been a common and legitimate use of property since the beginning of time. They cost less to get started, and they create jobs that otherwise might not exist. From piano lessons, to selling your chicken’s eggs to a neighbor or selling lemonade, if you have involvement in any thing of that nature has been a client in a home-based business.

The Government can’t make it a crime to sell produce grown in your own backyard.

The Government can’t make it a crime to safely keep bees in your own backyard and sell the honey.

The Government can protect your neighbors from intrinsically dangerous and non-residential activities on your property, but it can’t prohibit you from using your home for traditional household purposes.

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