Wine Road organizes three annual wine events per year. We typically have 120+ wineries participate. Each winery needs to pay for a "temporary food facilities annual permit" from the Health Department because they are two-day events. A one-day event does not require this permit. All of these wineries have a day-to-day permit from the Health Department and they have all attended California sanctioned food handling classes.

The ever increasing fees and paperwork for these two-day events have prohibited more and more wineries from participating. We have now been informed the County has requested another increase to the fee to cover costs of additional inspectors.

Our three annual events (10 days total) draw consumers from across the United States and typically have a positive economic impact of nearly 5 million dollars for Sonoma County every year. If more and more wineries are priced out of participating, these events will come to an end.

Our Wine Road events alone will generate $65,000 in permit fees based on the proposed new pricing, this is for 10 days. The system is broken. There are multiple winery associations all doing the same type of two-day event, yet there is no "winery form" for wineries to use consistently year to year. The form that is currently used makes no sense for these types of events and causes a frustrating back and forth correspondence between the Health Department and the wineries due to the winery specific information needed.

We need to simplify the form and streamline the process and not increase the fee for this permit.