Problem solved! Just uninstalled and reinstalled Free Time and then installed the empty neighborhood and now we have hobby lots. Simple as that.

So what are my options at this point? I tried reloading the original Maxis F002 from my backup and it didn't help. Is there a way to save my game if I have to reload from the Maxis disk?

I hope someone here can help me. I installed all empty neighborhoods, like ya do. I created 30 townies with the boolprop cheat and began playing my game. I got pretty far in before i noticed that a few odd things were happening. i downloaded the Batbox and through methods I don't really understand (pushing buttons, etc.), I fixed the problems. However, when my first sim got visited by the hobby guru with the invitation to the hobby lot, I noticed that the option to visit the hobby lot was not showing up in the "where do you want to go" menu. All the lots are in the TS/Data Res file and Neighborhood package file, but they won't show up in SimPe. I uninstalled and reinstalled the empty neighborhood (F002) and still no access. I think I must have screwed something up when I was going the Batbox options to fix my other minor problems. Is that even possible? I had to uninstall/reinstall M&G right before i started this new game because of a glitch, so could that have done it? I know the empty neighborhood worked before that because I visited all the hobby lots. I hope this makes sense. Any help is greatly appreciated.