Sonoma County Board of Supervisors to consider new winery event regulations

Sonoma County’s yearslong battle to establish a new set of regulations to govern winery events is coming back before the Board of Supervisors nearly a decade after backlash from rural neighbors touched off a tug-of-war over clearer limits on the expansion of the region’s signature industry.

The board on Tuesday will consider a proposal outlining new definitions and standards for winery events and tasting rooms, definitions that will serve to cap those activities for new applications going forward.

Rural residents have sought the regulations to mitigate impacts on traffic, safety, water use and other issues tied to the county’s multibillion-dollar wine industry.

Winery representatives, however, say they need flexibility to hold a range of events across the calendar to attract visitors and grow their brands by selling directly to consumers.

The county’s new proposal ordinance aims to establish standards including hours of operation, parking requirements, noise limits and food service requirements for wineries and tasting rooms that double as event centers.

Tuesday’s 9:35 a.m. hearing marks the most significant step at the board level since the debate erupted countywide in 2014.

That’s when outcry from rural residents and others concerned about the commercial footprint of the wine industry prompted the county to begin looking for ways to establish limits on events, including harvest parties, special tastings and other gatherings that can bring dozens of people or more to bucolic Wine County venues outside of normal operations.

A minority of the county’s wineries at that time, only about 132, were permitted to hold those special events, but many more did and continue to do so under a broader classification that regards them as industrywide activities.

The new proposed regulations remain in dispute. Many in the industry favor looser limits. Neighborhood coalitions, meanwhile, say the county’s new ordinance does not go far enough.

County officials hope the clear definitions will prove a useful starting point.

“It’s going to allow us to stop evaluating these use permits as one-offs and have standards across the board,” Bradley Dunn, a Permit Sonoma policy manager. “It gives everybody predictability about what we’re going to be looking for.”

Specific standards include: setting regular operating hours between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. for tasting rooms and industrywide events, and between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. for agricultural promotional events; prohibiting parking on roadways; requiring one parking space per 2.5 guests and banning wineries and tasting rooms from being rented out to third parties.

Tuesday’s proposal addresses changes the board endorsed in November 2022 when it engaged in a major rewrite of a different draft, which the Planning Commission had unanimously approved earlier that year.

The board at that time voted 4-1 on the revision and directed staff to bring it back this year. Supervisor Susan Gorin, whose district includes Sonoma Valley, one of the county’s premier wine regions, was the lone no vote.

Gorin did not respond to request for comment Monday.

If approved Tuesday, the ordinance would apply to new applicants along with revised applications — and not to the 307 sites, including wineries and tasting rooms, that have been issued county permits.

It would be the county’s first ordinance specifically governing winery events, Dunn said.

Permit Sonoma, the county’s planning and permitting department, has received 62 new and modified use-permit applications for wineries and tasting rooms since 2016, according to a staff report. Of those applications, 27 were approved through the public hearing process and 35 are under discretionary review, meaning by staff members.

Supervisors David Rabbitt and James Gore both said they expect the proposal will pass Tuesday.

“I think it’s a pretty modest proposal to focus on not regulating but defining things what will be regulated by the Planning Commission,” said Gore, whose district includes the Dry Creek Valley and parts of Westside Road — both with high concentrations for winery events and tasting rooms.

Before last year, the board had sought a policymaking path through a series of advisory panels, working groups and study sessions of its own — work that was slowed after the 2017 firestorm, which forced the county to shift priorities.

Both Rabbitt and Gore said they supported regulations that set standards for certain elements including parking, noise limits, water and sewer requirement but were leery of regulations that go further.

“I look at this as a development kind of thing,” Rabbitt said. “All off-site impacts should be mitigated to the fullest extent possible. We certainly don’t want carte blanche in total indiscretion on the business side, as we want everyone to be reasonable, step up and provide regulations and definitions that are clear and achieve the outcome that we all want.”

You can reach Staff Writer Emma Murphy at 707-521-5228 or emma.murphy@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MurphReports.