Over the course of several months vintners, wine growers and tasting rooms have been heatedly discussing the change of a 20 year regional ordinance prohibiting specific marketing and events in Napa County. County Supervisors set the ordinance in place as a way to dictate the number of wine country tourists visiting the area at a given time. Unfortunately for current business owners, the ordinance has never been updated. The outdated ordinance specifically prohibits events including weddings that are not directly related to the marketing of wine. It also restricts wine tasting to groups or individuals that have not made an advanced reservation.
Most of Napa County's wineries are finding it increasingly difficult to make a profit during the current financial state of the economy and are asking supervisors to updated the ordinance to fit a current business model. The Board of Supervisors has stated that lifting the ban on weddings and events would be an easy decision if there was a way around necessary traffic studies which could cost the region hundreds of thousands of dollars. Several business owners have suggested using a special event permitting system, increasing the number of events held each year in the region while putting a cap on the total number of yearly events. This idea was quickly abandoned by most of the Supervisors and businesses because the interest for this type of system was not high enough. The Board of Supervisors will reconvene at a later date to discuss other options concerning the updating of the ordinance.
