Lompoc winery opposes Santa Barbara County ordinance, fee

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(The Center Square) – A winery in Santa Barbara County is challenging what it calls an illegal government mandate.

In February 2025, the county Board of Supervisors approved the creation of a Wine Business Improvement District or Wine BID. It requires wineries to pay a 1% fee on all their sales to fund regional marketing efforts. Wineries must also become members of the Santa Barbara County Vintners Association, which controls how the money is spent.

Flying Goat Cellars, a Lompoc winery, is challenging the mandate with help from attorneys at Phoenix-based Goldwater Institute.

“There’s no opt-out,” Goldwater senior staff attorney Adam Shelton told The Center Square. “They have to join, and they have to pay the 1% fee.”

When asked for a dollar amount for 1% of her business' sales, Flying Goat Cellars co-owner Kate Griffith said the amount is not the issue. The issue is that they were forced to pay something and be members.

“If we do not want to be associated or affiliated with this organization, we should not have to be, so anything is too much as far as I’m concerned,” Griffith told The Center Square. “We’re talking about our First Amendment right, and we’re talking with the right to affiliate or not. And we’re talking about our Fifth Amendment right with the taking of our personal property, which is our money in this case.”

Griffith’s husband, Flying Goat Cellars co-owner Norm Yost, said the Santa Barbara County Vintners’ Association has been around for decades and has “always had funding issues.”

Both Griffith and Yost have served on the board. And while Griffith said they “appreciated its methods and approaches in years ago by,” the couple has not agreed with the association's actions in recent years.

“We feel like the organization has been shanghaied by the wealthier, deeper pockets in the county - the wineries that have more resources, and it’s catering to this group,” said Griffith. “There’s like 480-something wineries in Santa Barbara County, and a very small amount are dominating. And some wineries that are owned by billionaires are driving this thing, and it’s just absurd that we are having to opt-in without a choice.”

Goldwater Institute sent a demand letter to Bob Nelson, chair of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors, to say this violates the U.S. Constitution.

No deadline for response was given. Shelton said the Goldwater Institute is “willing to work with them.” If the Board of Supervisors does not respond or these issues are not adequately resolved to his client’s satisfaction, Shelter said all avenues are on the table, including litigation.

“This is compelled speech,” said Shelton. “The Supreme Court has long held that organizations and businesses cannot be required to subsidize the speech of a private organization, and that’s exactly what’s happening here,”

Shelton also described it as compelled association insofar as the wineries are effectively now members of this association, one that he said “advocated for the creation of this Wine BID.”

After being asked for comment, the Santa Barbara County government told The Center Square that it has received correspondence regarding the Santa Barbara County Wine Improvement District, which was formed in February 2025 pursuant to California law. 

“At this time, we are not aware that a lawsuit has been filed, but are reviewing the received correspondence,” said the county.

The Santa Barbara County Wine Improvement District said it was established by the county through a public process and approved by the Board of Supervisors in accordance with California law.

“Benefit assessment frameworks like this have been used statewide for decades to support regional economic development,” CEO Alison Laslett of Santa Barbara Vintners told The Center Square. "Santa Barbara Vintners" is another name for the Santa Barbara County Vintners Association.

Griffith, who has lived in other states, including Indiana, warned requirements such as those in Santa Barbara County could happen to any business owner or industry.

“If the wine industry is allowed to make an assessment, every industry can,” said Griffith. “If this is allowed to continue, you’re going to see more and more industries get their industry organizations out there and get an assessment so that they can market their product, shoes, clothes, beer, soft drinks, whatever.”