Mrs Miller, who used to run her bookshop (specialising in children's books, school and college texts, law and Australiana) in the Manuka Arcade, had to leave there 18 months ago because of back trouble and she moved into a semi-detached house on the residential side of Bougainville Street.

Her doctor practised from a house behind the one she moved into and more than half-a-dozen other businesses were run in similar houses to the one she rented.

However, it was illegal to run a business from a house unless permission was given by the department, and this was only given if one also lived there. The department a week earlier had sent Mrs Miller a letter telling her to cease her "unauthorised activity".

Mrs Miller said she could not afford to move her bookselling business into a shop - the changeover alone would cost more than $5000 - "and where can a woman in her 50s get a job these days"?

People from a wide range of professions visited her Minerva bookshop and this usually meant they also shopped for their groceries across the road in Manuka.

Children often came and spent hours in rooms filled with children's books or played in her garden while their parents browsed.

"And there haven't been any problems with parking their cars," she said, adding there was plenty of space.

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