Letters to the editor: Sonoma County needs to take action on winery events policy

NORTH BAY BUSINESS JOURNAL

March 5, 2021

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Enough is enough

Editor:

“Pending Sonoma County winery event rules pit vintners against residents” failed to expose the redundant, chaotic, mind-boggling process the county has burdened the community with for the last several years. The County has repeatedly asked for feedback, from numerous workshops to the Winery Working Group that met monthly in 2015, to county sponsored Community Advisory Councils, primarily made up of wine industry reps with self-interest as their key agenda.

Community groups have worked constructively with the County for seven long years, coming up with a balanced set of guidelines.

It’s time to cut bait and create an ordinance that protects public safety and quality of life for residents living in neighborhoods with event centers.

The wine industry naturally wants less regulations, and more entitlements while the residents want peace of mind, less traffic, less noise, fewer DUI’s.

Surprisingly, at the workshop, Permit Sonoma staff said the policies would apply to new tasting rooms only.

The county is responsible to the entire community when it comes to safety, environmental and quality of life concerns. Turning this process over to industry dominated committees and lobbyists to promulgate lax regulations is a dereliction of responsibility.

Enough is enough.

Padi Selwyn, co-chair, Preserve Rural Sonoma County, Sebastopol

Full EIR needed

Dear Editor:

At the recent Winery Events Ordinance workshop (“Pending Sonoma County Winery event rules….”) there was much talk by County staff about balancing wine industry needs.

Yet, the county fails to recognize that for the past 20 years they permitted nearly 500 wineries, double the number forecast in our General Plan. Tasting rooms morphed from drop-in, stand up tasting, to seated wine and food pairing, coupled with an explosion in the number of events county-wide.

This effort grew from residents’ concerns that the proliferation of tasting rooms and events that had gotten out of hand. The wine industry has made the absurd suggestion that rather than limit parties and events, the County should expand them.

It’s long overdue for county staff to put pen to paper and develop an ordinance that protects public safety and quality of life for residents living in neighborhoods with an ever- increasing number of facilities and promotional uses.

At the workshop, the public voiced strong preference for continuing the standards for events and focusing on further limiting the size of such events. If the county is considering expanding hospitality uses it must do a full EIR to examine the impacts of such a significant policy change.

Chris Meyer, Rohnert Park