Update: Petaluma Creamery pays city portion of $1.4M owed; fines linger

Petaluma Creamery officials, threatened with closure late last week over $1.42 million in unpaid fines and fees, dropped a cashier’s check at city hall worth more than $800,000 Monday afternoon, sending city officials scrambling to determine next steps for the embattled dairy business.

City leaders were prepared to place a lien on the property, as well as cut off access to the city’s wastewater infrastructure if the dairy business did not meet the Monday deadline to pay its balance, according to an ultimatum issued Friday by City Manager Peggy Flynn.

The $844,328.17 cashier’s check submitted to City Hall by Petaluma Creamery representatives Monday afternoon accounts for the company’s unpaid wastewater discharge bills, about 60% of the total due. Neither Flynn nor Assistant City Attorney Jordan Green could say Monday how the payment would affect the city’s course of action.

“They still owe the unpaid wastewater capacity fees and permit violation fines,” Flynn said in an email. “The city team will meet this week to further discuss next steps.”

Larry Peter, a longtime local dairy farmer who has owned the Petaluma Creamery since 2004, could not be reached for comment through the creamery or the Washoe House, the historic roadhouse he bought in 2015. An attorney for the creamery declined to comment when reached Monday evening.

Since 1913, the creamery has processed raw milk at its downtown location on Western Avenue for powdered milk, cheese and butter. Today, the creamery churns out Organic Spring Hill Jersey Cheese and Butter, Petaluma Cheese and Petaluma Gold Ice Cream.

The city’s move to potentially shutter the dairy business, which employs 56 workers and processes milk for at least 10 local farm families, comes amid chronic wastewater violations and missed payments starting as far back as 2007, according to documents obtained by the Argus-Courier.

City officials, citing the dairy’s nearly 110-year run as a Petaluma landmark, worked closely with the creamery for more than a decade before seeking a judgment in 2018, and issuing a warning in December 2020.

Tyler Silvy is editor of The Petaluma Argus-Courier. Reach him at tyler.silvy@arguscourier.com, 707-776-8458, or @tylersilvy on Twitter.