This was a big compromise on the city's part. Before allowing a Commissary, you just could not have a home based business at all. But with the invention of the internet, the people threw a fit about wanting to have websites where they could sell things from home, so they come up with this mess.
There are loopholes to everything. As long as the products are not finished and packaged for sale, they can be at your home (provided that no one driving by can tell there is a business in your home at all. You cannot store ANYTHING outside or do anything outside, so I can't store my dirty equipment outside like I have been). What you have to do is keep your equipment and supplies at your Commissary. When you want to soap, you go get your stuff and bring it home and soap to your hearts content and then take all of your stuff back to your commissary. As long as the soap is still curing, it is not technically finished and I can keep it at home. Once it is packaged for sale, it must be at the Commissary. So theoretically, I could just leave the soaps on the drying rack until they sell online and then just package them up and send them out. No on-site sale, just internet or deliveries to people's homes. If I were to do a show, I would have to be able to package it and take it to the Commissary and be able to get into the space I am renting to pick everything up for a show and take it and then drop the leftovers back off before I go home...or unwrap it all and put it back on the drying rack (not going to happen). Your Commissary can be a storage unit, but it would have to be temperature controlled. A storage unit would get me around having to be able to get in at 3 am to take them to shows where you have to set up early.
In addition, you cannot increase traffic, by road or foot traffic. You cannot have USPS, UPS or FedEX show up at your house more than once per day each to pick up deliveries and you cannot, under any circumstances, allow anyone to soap who is not immediate family, living in the residence.
Again, this is for ANY business in my town that is run out of the home. I haven't even gotten into requirements for soaping, itself. This is why I didn't even want to look. But I am glad I am checking it out. Seems if I started now, I might be ready when I am ready to sell, which is a long way off.
You can buy an electric water boiler, to have pro forma is ok I think, only to have in a case of control – but first u must be sure what the regulations in your area are and if you really need it!
