The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors has yet to decide whether to legalize home kitchen operations after hearing community feedback at its last meeting.
The board voted March 9 to continue the discussion around a proposed ordinance that would legalize microenterprise home kitchen operations. While most board members spoke in support of the ordinance, pushback during public comment contributed to the unanimous decision to continue the item.
Multiple Santa Maria city officials spoke in opposition to the ordinance, which would permit home kitchen chefs “to store, handle, and prepare a limited number of meals (no more than 30 individual meals per day, and no more than 60 per week) for direct sale to consumers, expanding home-based business and employment opportunities within the county provided specific food safety provisions are met,” a letter to the board from county Director of Environmental Health Services Lars Seifert stated.
Santa Maria Code Enforcement Supervisor Joy Castaing said the ordinance would give an unfair advantage to home kitchen operations over brick-and-mortar restaurants. She also expressed concerns over the potential fire and sewer hazards home kitchens could create. Santa Maria Mayor Alice Patino spoke after Castaing and had the same reservations.
“Under the proposed ordinance, micro-kitchens can basically operate in the city with few regulations, and avoid paying taxes to support city services,” Patino said. “Please do not impose this on us.”
Terri Stricklin, general manager of The Hitching Post restaurant in Casmalia, spoke on behalf of the Reopen the Central Coast Business Coalition, which she said is made up of more than 100 businesses in the Santa Maria-Orcutt area.
“Brick-and-mortar restaurants and caterers have to follow stringent guidelines to operate, and that’s not even taking into account the past year and the severe restrictions that have been placed on everybody,” Stricklin said as she expressed her opposition to the ordinance.
Fifth District Supervisor Steve Lavagnino said the public comment gave him new insight on what he initially thought to be an uncomplicated issue.
“I’m not going to try to impose something on folks that are this adamantly opposed to it,” Lavagnino said.
Second District Supervisor Gregg Hart said he believes there was a misunderstanding about the impact the ordinance is meant to have.
“Ultimately, this will require, I think, a balance between what folks are concerned about legitimately—health and safety, making sure that these operations are high quality and the impacts to the neighborhoods are modest—but the purpose of this is to create opportunity, and economic opportunity, for small-scale entrepreneurs,” he said.
First District Supervisor Das Williams pointed out a contradiction between ongoing county efforts to loosen regulations on businesses, and the argument against micro-kitchens.
“It’s just kind of weird to hear for a long time, ‘We want you to give us business opportunities … ’ and then finally we have one example where the county’s going to legalize something that is a great business opportunity, and then we have most of those same folks going, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, let’s take more public input.’”
Williams suggested that the timing of the proposed ordinance—in the middle of a pandemic that has devastated the restaurant industry—could be the root of some community opposition.
“People are looking at their balance sheet, they’re looking at their business in trouble because of COVID and the lockdowns, and it feels like a moment of insecurity where this might be something that people feel nervous about,” he said. “But I just don’t see how us not pursuing this makes the situation any better.”
Third District Supervisor Joan Hartmann and Fourth District Supervisor Bob Nelson both expressed support for the ordinance, arguing that it would open doors for small entrepreneurs who don’t have the capital to open a brick-and-mortar restaurant, or people just looking for a side hustle. The ordinance only allows home kitchen operations to produce up to 60 meals per week.
“This isn’t a business that I think would compete with a lot of the brick-and-mortar businesses in our community,” Nelson said.
The board ultimately agreed that it needed county staff to conduct additional outreach with the business community, local chambers, and local city governments before moving forward with a decision.
This article appears in Mar 11-18, 2021.