Fines force winery to close
Old Creek Ranch was Oak View fixture
By Bill Lascher 12/27/2007
Carmel Whitman’s tears rang out through the phone as she thought about losing the winery her parents opened more than a quarter century ago.
In a Dec. 19 call, Whitman said the decision she made with her husband, John, and daughter, Campbell, to close the Old Creek Ranch Winery near Oak View was painful, but the only option after Ventura County officials threatened the business with fines for violating an ordinance intended to prevent billboards and for failing to obtain the proper permits to sell food in its tasting room. The previous day, the family spent hours with a lawyer and an accountant exploring Old Creek’s possibilities, but it soon became clear that it could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring the winery up to code, on top of thousands of dollars in fines.
“They’re just unbelievable hoops,” Whitman said. “Nobody can look at the big picture.”
Trouble began for Old Creek in October, when the Ventura County Star ran a column about a new series of cigar nights the winery planned to host. The column also mentioned that Santa Barbara Olive Company hoped to open an olive tasting bar at Old Creek, which already sold sealed olive oils, garlic, hot sauce and other merchandise from businesses in the Ojai area. That article tipped off regulators from the environmental health division, which sent an inspector to the winery and later cited it for illegally selling food.
“It just never crossed my mind that selling sealed jars of olives or chocolate bars or the other kinds of foods we had required a food permit,” Whitman said.
State laws enforced by the environmental health division require anyone selling food — even sealed products — to have a restroom available to employees in the same building where the sales take place. Old Creek’s employee restrooms are in another building, which also contain a residence (state law also forbids employers from sharing the restrooms with a residence). Although wineries are exempt from laws requiring employee restrooms, Debbie Borsos, a county consumer food compliance supervisor, said selling or offering any food besides wine would need a conditional use permit from the County. Whitman’s mother, Carmel Maitland, never sought a CUP before she died 11 years ago.
“Our food sales were really substantial and important,” Whitman said. “When I had to take those off the shelves my merchandise sales just plummeted.”
After the initial violation was issued, County planning officials also notified Old Creek that a sign luring drivers on nearby Highway 33 to the winery was illegal because it wasn’t placed on the same parcel of land as the business. Ventura County Planning Director Chris Stevens said the offsite advertising regulation was put on the books decades ago to prevent billboards from cropping up throughout the County.
“It’s pretty straightforward and clear,” Stephens said of the ordinance.
Stephens said the county would only pursue punitive fines as a last resort and was more interested in working with the winery to resolve its alleged violations.
“Our interest is in helping them get themselves squared away to the extent that we can,” Stephens said. However, he added, “The code is in this case quite clear, so in this case our options are quite limited.”
Still, Stephens said one amicable solution might be for the county to put the winery in touch with CalTrans to explore the possibility of adding an official winery sign to one of its road markers, something Fillmore’s Geissinger Winery achieved.
But any work the county does to help the winery fix its violation could be expensive. The cost for a minimum confirmation that the charges have been addressed can exceed $300, and county staff charges $150 per hour for any time it spends seeking corrections of the violation, as well as 2 percent monthly interest for unpaid bills.
Whitman said the charges about the road sign came like “a bolt out of the blue,” especially because the sign was erected in 1982. She also didn’t understand why she was having so much trouble now with the county while the winery has had more than twenty years of smooth sailing with the state alcoholic beverages control board and the federal bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms.
“We’re totally flummoxed over how it is that the county has some overriding power over these two other agencies and how it overlapped,” she said. “We just pride ourselves on being a mom and pop wine making operation. We know our customers very well.”
DIGG | del.icio.us | REDDIT