(CBS DETROIT) – It’s a sweet way to celebrate your birthday: Free tickets to see the Detroit Lions.

“When they sent me a text message, this is a scam. I was like, ‘Don’t pick it up.’ Then they were like ‘If you don’t, we will go to the next person.’ I was like hold on,” Niko Monjarez said.

It’s a notification that almost seemed too good to be true. Niko just celebrated his birthday, and luckily, his aunt knew about Home Bakery’s raffle and was looking to score. The bakery recently went viral after creating a cake imitating the headstand celebration done by Lions wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown.

The cake is pretty popular in the Rochester community. After St.Brown visited the business, he offered up two tickets for Saturday’s game.

“I thought I’d just get the receipt and stick it in his card, I probably won’t win. The love gift is, I spent two hours in the cold waiting just for him,” Monjarez’s aunt, Cyndi Wehrli, told CBS News Detroit.

The St. Brown cake is pretty popular in the Rochester community. After St.Brown visited the business, he offered up two tickets for Saturday’s playoff game.

Customers had to buy something from the bakery to participate. That decision alone was a game-changer.

“Normally, in January, I’m laying off, I’m cutting hours, some up to 25%. I don’t have to do that. Some of my people will look for a second job; they don’t have to do that,” said bakery owner Heather Tocco.

Tocco and her team decided on the headstand cake weeks ago. It took around 200 hours to complete and stands just over 6 feet tall.

“We actually took the image of him on his head and expanded it to the height that we wanted,” she said.

Wehrli says she is in disbelief that her nephew won. As a lifelong Lions fan, she’s proud to witness the team’s progress.

“I think it’s so amazing that St. Brown did what he did and used a local entity,” she said.

Monjarez isn’t surprised his aunt had the winning receipt. He says she does a lot of good in the world. With the win, he now gets the chance to surprise another family member.

“My dad’s been a lifetime Lions fan. This is historic, and to be able to go see that is a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” Monjarez said.

The cake display will stay up until the Super Bowl, while the Home Bakery team is planning to replace it with a Vince Lombardi display.

FOX 2 – Annette Anderson was full of gratitude at Friday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony for 1st Step Healthcare Training.

“Today is my one-year anniversary and I’m here one year later,” she said.

The backstory:

Anderson’s brainchild is a boot camp for nursing assistants, offering training and getting them ready to enter the workforce.

“I felt like healthcare needed a change, and I wanted to make that change,” she said. “I wanted to get people in the field that were very empathetic and compassionate. And I also wanted to be an entrepreneur and own my own business, to change the lives of my family – to let them know, if she can do it, I can do it.”

For Anderson, it is a passion project.

“You never know when the time you might need someone to take care of you,  you need people that are very passionate to take care of you,” she said. “I know that I would trust my students taking care of me because I trained them to that standard.”

Anderson got $20,000 from Motor City Match as seed money. A business like this needs classroom equipment, furnishing, marketing, and so much more.

Already more than 70 students have graduated from the program.

“Learning from someone who cares about healthcare and takes it as serious as everybody should take it,” said Rebecca Platt, a participant. “It’s good to know that there are people out there who still care and they want to retrain people to do the same thing for people who need it.”

“These are high-paying, well-regarded jobs for people to take care of their families and their communities,” said Kevin Johnson, Detroit Economic Growth Corporation.

According to projections from a report by Mercer on the future of the U.S. healthcare industry, Michigan is expected to face a projected shortage of 2,520 Certified Nursing Assistants by the year 2028. 

Learn more about 1st Step Healthcare Training on its website, HERE.

DETROIT – A parking company says that parking rates at three lots near Ford Field in Downtown Detroit were mistakenly listed for $999 due to a tech issue.

On Jan. 16, 2025, the city of Detroit filed a complaint against Park-Rite, Inc., a company that operates 12 parking lots in Detroit, after rates at three lots near Ford Field were listed online for $999 ahead of the Detroit Lions game. Parking rates are regulated by the city, and rates at those particular lots are capped at $150.

As of Friday morning, the city had closed the three parking lots and posted orders to suspend operation at the sites. The lots were re-opened later Friday morning.

Here’s what was explained in court:

What Park Rite says happened

Oral arguments were heard during a status conference held before Judge David J. Allen on Friday, Jan. 17, 2025.

Attorney Michael Vogt spoke on behalf of Park Rite. He said that Park Rite uses Spot Hero, a digital parking marketplace, to market, advertise rates, and sell reservations online. He said the $999 price was mistakenly published to Spot Hero due to a tech issue and has since been corrected.

He said that the e-commerce manager for Park Rite, Miguel Nouhan, put the $999 number in the system as an “inventory control measure” within their online dashboard to let him know when there are overlapping events scheduled in Detroit. A change occurred in Spot Hero that caused the $999 rate in the internal dashboard to mistakenly be published on the public website without his knowledge.

“Spot Hero changed the way their logic works very recently and didn’t notify me to explain how it works so, basically, they’re telling me that even though on my side it says in caps ‘EVENT SOLD OUT INVENTORY 0′, if I put 999 in there, it’s going to automatically pull that number in when there’s an overlapping event,” Nouhan said. “For example, if there’s an event at the Music Hall and at Ford Field, it’s gonna take the highest of the two rates whether there’s inventory available or not.”

Nouhan said under oath that the $999 rate published on Spot Hero was not published intentionally. He said when he notice the issue he contacted his representative with Spot Hero and they corrected the issue.

Was anyone charged $999?

According to Vogt and Nouhan, no, nobody was charged $999.

Nouhan said a customer was “never ever” charged $999 for a parking space at one of those three lots. He said that if someone had booked at the $999 price, he would have noticed the next morning and “would immediately refund it.”

What happens next?

Judge David J. Allen said the court was satisfied that the $999 rate hadn’t been charged and that the company acknowledged it was a mistake and corrected the issue. He ordered that the lots be re-opened.

A special conference has been scheduled for 10 a.m. on Jan. 22, 2025. At this conference, they will decide if the case will be dismissed.

—> Previous report: 3 parking lots accused of charging up to $1,000 for Detroit Lions playoff parking

3 lots located near Ford Field

The lots are located near the intersection of Randolph Street and Gratiot Avenue, just a few hundred feet south of Ford Field.