Napa winery faces $4M in fines after losing legal battle with county

By John Ramos

A Napa County winery owner faces nearly $4 million in penalties after losing a two-year-long legal battle with the county over permit violations.

In Napa Valley, many wineries offer on-site tasting, but smaller ones, such as Oasis at the Hoopes Family Winery near Yountville, operate on a “Small Winery Exemption” permit that the county says does not allow tasting events.  

The owner, Lindsay Hoopes, has disputed that and continues to welcome the public onto the property. So, the county took her to court to make her stop, citing illegal activities like keeping farm animals on the property, offering yoga classes and decorating with unpermitted string lights.

“This is the most inhumane thing I’ve ever seen,” said Hoopes. “Drinking wine at a winery should never, ever, ever force a business owner/mother to essentially defend her livelihood or protect her children. I mean, the whole thing has been so grossly abusive and punitive.

The fight has been going on for more than two years now, and recently, a judge ruled against Hoopes, ordering her to end all on-site tastings and public events or sales. She is also being ordered to pay nearly $4 million in fines and court costs, more than half of it going to pay private attorney’s fees that the county racked up in suing her.  

Art Hartinger is the lawyer who has been representing the county.

“The sort of relentless and aggressive nature of what the Hoopes have done in terms of constantly filing this, that, and the other thing, has driven up the cost,” he said.  “And is that normal?  No, I don’t think that’s normal. Is that lawful?  It certainly is. That is, that the judge’s decision is certainly lawful because he’s awarding reasonable fees.”

But they’re not reasonable to Bridget Conlan, an attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation, a national firm that specializes in defending people against excessive fines.  The foundation has been defending Lindsay Hoopes for free.

“This is an 8-acre property, a tiny, family winery. And you go there and it’s picturesque, and you can’t imagine what they could have done that would have been worth $4 million in penalties. But that’s unfortunately what it’s gotten to. This does happen in excessive fines cases and that’s why we have a constitutional right against them, because the founding fathers were worried about this.”

Hartinger said all the county wants to do is get the winery back into compliance, and they insist they don’t want to put Hoopes out of business. But Conlan said she suspects the amount of the fines and court costs are meant to send a message to other wineries that they should think twice about challenging the county’s enforcement.

“We only sue the government, and yet this is unusual to see this level of fines for something like yoga and string lights,” Conlan said. “That’s not typical and does sort of raise a red flag about what’s really going on here.”

The county says the previous owner was holding illegal tastings as well but agreed to stop and then quickly sold the property to Hoopes in 2017. Officials say they became aware that the winery was again holding on-site events in early 2020.  

At this point, the judge’s ruling is final, and the amount of the penalties will stand. But he has stayed the order to give Hoopes a chance to file an appeal, which she said she intends to do.  

And in the meantime, she can continue holding tastings at the winery.