Rita Hills, the county’s most successful wine region, was approved by the county Board of Supervisors this week with few concessions to the neighboring vintners.
SFS Farms, owned by investors in Colorado and Manhattan Beach, is the largest “grow” approved by the county to date.
Dan Gainey, the owner of the Gainey Vineyard just east of and downwind from SFS Farms; and Ron and Chad Melville, who own a vineyard next to Gainey’s and a wine tasting lounge a mile northeast of SFS Farms, were asking the board to overturn the county Planning Commission’s earlier approval of the SFS Farms operation.
Speaking for the owners, Kurt Ammann, general manager of the Melville Winery, told the board it would be “irresponsible” to approve a permit for SFS Farms. Noting that the Sta.
In the end, Lavagnino suggested that SFS Farms voluntarily provide a larger setback from the Gainey Vineyard and plant a row of trees and bushes between the two properties.
The board’s vote on Tuesday was 4-1, with Supervisor Joan Hartmann, who represents much of the Sta.
On Tuesday, Hartmann called SFS Farms “a gargantuan grow” and said she did not think the county should be giving “windfall profits to a few.” What’s more, SFS Farms would be operating with no odor controls in the Sta.
“I’m not convinced that this project will not have an effect on Melville,” he said.
Supervisor Das Williams, a chief architect of the cannabis ordinance along with Lavagnino, voted against any blanket requirements for conditional use permits last year, including a scaled-down proposal, proposed by Hartmann, that would have applied only to cannabis cultivation in the Sta.
In the course of Tuesday’s hearing, Ammann and Conlan gave the board different versions of why their efforts to reach a settlement had failed.
No agreement was possible, Ammann said, because SFS Farms would not accept any terms that ran with the land and applied to future operators.
On Tuesday, El-Diwany told the supervisors that the SFS Farms location was not suited to the “skunky”- smelling strains of cannabis.
Under the permit that was approved on Tuesday, the cannabis operation will be limited to two three-week harvests per year.
SFS Farms is by no means the largest cannabis operation in the county review pipeline.