In 2011 the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors voted to approve spending taxpayer money to update the existing Santa Barbara County Winery Ordinance.

After five and half years, and more than $1,000,000 spent, the draft of the new Santa Barbara County Winery Ordinance goes before the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, November 1st for discussion and possible vote.

The wine industry, and related stakeholders, do not support the draft winery ordinance because the new regulations do not streamline or clarify the winery permit process and allowed uses. The ordinance only further restricts sustainable agriculture and the selling of wine. Many signficant questions about the language in the proposed ordinance remain.

This new ordinance will substantially limit the number of winery and tasting room visitors and the number and types of events wineries host. The new regulations will make it very hard for our family-owned wineries to remain competitive against wineries in other regions.

If you work in the Santa Barbara wine, tourism or event industries, and want to stay employed, you should sign this petition. If you (or a loved one) benefit from charitable events that are held at wineries (or are supported in part from wine donations) you should sign this petition. If you enjoy small-production, high-quality wines from Santa Barbara, you should sign this petition. If you are none of the above, but just like to make sure that ordinances are the product of intelligent, open collaboration and dialogue between involved parties, you should sign this petition.

Tell the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors that you love Santa Barbara Wine Country and want the region to thrive with wineries and tasting rooms under a set of fair and balanced regulations. Tell them to VOTE NO on the proposed winery ordinance as written.

Knowledge is power. Read more about the proposed Santa Barbara County Winery Ordinance here >

http://longrange.sbcountyplanning.org/programs/winery_ord/wineryordinance.php

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