By Barry Eberling | Feb 5, 2024 | Napa Valley Register |
Several Napa County officials testified during the first six days of the Hoopes Vineyard winery trial through Monday as the county sought to make its case that Hoopes broke the rules.
The county alleges Hoopes holds illegal tastings, among other violations. It says Hoopes must obtain a county use permit to entertain guests.
As of 10 a.m. Monday, Hoopes’ attorneys had yet to mount their defense, other than cross-examining witnesses. They had yet to launch an offensive for a countersuit that accuses the county of having “arbitrary, vague and unintelligible rules.”
A key factor in the case is Napa County’s set of rules for small winery exemptions, which the county made available during the 1980s. County officials say participating wineries agreed to certain restrictions in return for streamlined approvals.
“You can’t have hospitality. You can’t have people onto the grounds tasting wines, buying merchandise,” said attorney Arthur Hartinger of Renne Public Law Group on behalf of the county.
Previous owners obtained a small winery exemption for the Hoopes site in 1984. To host guests, a winery using the exemption must apply for and obtain a use permit, the county contends.
County supervising planner Charlene Gallina, under questioning from a county attorney, explained why. A use permit application allows the county to analyze such factors as traffic and whether water and wastewater systems are adequate for visitation, she said.
Hoopes winery operator Lindsay Hoopes, who was a San Francisco assistant district attorney, helped represent the Hoopes side. For example, she cross-examined Gallina.
Consultant Carl Butts worked with the Hoopes winery from 2018 to 2020. The county legal team showed Butts an email in which he deemed that obtaining a use permit would require improving the wastewater system, driveway and fire system. His estimated cost was $500,000 to $1 million.
County officials testified the Hoopes winery to date hasn’t applied for a use permit. Napa County in February 2020 and May 2021 issued notices of apparent violations to the winery.
Questioned by a county attorney, county code enforcement officer Kelli Cahill described how meetings with Lindsay Hoopes and Hoopes’ representatives failed to resolve the matter, eventually leading to the county’s lawsuit.
Cross-examined by Lindsay Hoopes, Cahill said she based allegations of illegal tasting on what she found on social media and the Hoopes website, but didn’t personally observe them.
Cahill’s supervisor, Akenya Robinson-Webb, testified she made an appointment at Hoopes winery and visited on Oct. 27, 2021 for what the county legal team called a tasting.
Also, the county legal team hired Edward Kreisberg to make an appointment at Hoopes. He testified about his visit in May 2023, during which he didn’t tell Hoopes employees he was conducting an investigation.
He spoke of how a Hoopes employee met him and his wife with glasses of wine. The employee talked about the mix of grapes in the wine. There were places to sit.
He testified he bought four bottles of wine, a ceramic bowl, a candle and pineapple olive oil at the Hoopes shop — even though most wineries with use permits in the rural Napa Valley are prohibited from selling non-wine-related items.
The Hoopes legal team last year objected to the Kreisberg investigation, given the ongoing litigation at the time he went to the winery. It asked that the Renee Public Law Group be dismissed from representing the county for violating “rules of no contact” during a lawsuit. In December, Judge Mark Boessenecker declined to do so.
Hoopes attorneys asked Kreisberg during cross-examination if he is a licensed investigator. Kreisberg said he is an attorney, but does not have an investigator’s license.
Former Planning, Building and Environmental Services director David Morrison, under questioning from county attorneys, explained county winery rules.
One issue was the county’s 2017 amendment to its zoning code definition of agriculture. The revised definition included marketing and sales at wineries, with such activities to be “incidental and subordinate.”
County attorneys sought to refute the idea that adding marketing to the agriculture definition superseded the small winery exemption restriction on marketing. Morrison pointed to a code reference to small wineries in the revised definition.
During cross-examination, Hoopes attorney Katharine Falace asked if the county code defines “tours” and “tastings.” Morrison said “no.” Also, he didn’t know why the 1980s-era application forms for small winery exemptions had a space for “anticipated visitors,” given he wasn’t in Napa County at the time.
Napa City Councilmember Beth Painter testified as an expert witness for the county because of her work with applicants — not Hoopes — for winery/vineyard projects.
Legal or not, the winery site may have had tours even in the 1980s, Napa Valley Register research shows. Former owners received a small winery exemption for Hopper Creek winery in 1984. The Nov. 14, 1986 issue of the Napa Register has a blurb for tours there by appointment.
In March 2011, the Register ran a story about the Hopper Creek winery “hospitality expert.”
During the trial, the county team mentioned a former owner in January 2007 received a violations notice for unauthorized tours and tastings. The Hoopes family bought the winery in 2017.