A Swedish grandmother will be jailed for over one month after she balked her municipality’s orders to stop selling her beloved baked goods on Facebook. The unnamed woman, 70, became the target of the Norrbotten authorities after she began sharing her love of baking on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Attracting friends and fans on social media, the retiree brought joy to many of her community’s locals who had felt cooped up by COVID-19 measures in 2020 and 2021. As she attracted more attracted more attention, she began wrangling with an excess of baked goods.
While she managed to offload some to her grandchildren and deep-freezers, on one occasion she also sold some of her buns to a viewer at-cost, meaning she did not take a profit.
However, the grandmother’s harmless hobby quickly attracted the attention of the municipal authorities, who issued her a fine of 130,000 SEK (approx. $12,800 USD) and a demand to stop selling her baked goods.
But without an income beyond her pension, the woman was unable to pay the fine. The district court then converted the order into a custodial sentence of one and a half months, accusing her of continuing to sell her goods despite her insistence she had only done it a single time.
Frida Larsson, the senior’s defense attorney, has told local press that they intended to appeal the decision.
“She is old and has health problems, and she cannot see herself being able to cope with it,” Larsson explained. “It has taken a very hard toll on her, and she is very depressed.”
Though some Swedish outlets have reported the senior had refused to pay the fine in an act of defiance, Larsson asserts that is untrue and that the woman simply did not have the financial means to wrangle with the massive bill.
“My client wants to do right for herself, but she has limited financial means to do so … She would have rather seen that she had to pay this off instead of being sentenced to a prison sentence, given her age and faltering health,” Larsson said.
“Conversion of fines should be aimed at people who are unwilling to pay and not at a pensioner who likes to bake and post on Facebook.”
