In no surprise to anyone who followed the mildly controversial roll-out of the Santa Barbara County Vintner’s Association running the county’s winery business improvement district (for a small fee, of course), Flying Goat Cellars finally sued the county over the deal.
It could have been Stephen Pepe who pulled the trigger—after all, the Clos Pepe Vineyard owner stated that the county could be sued if it passed this thing. He also wrote several opinion pieces opining about how screwed-up the whole thing was.
But, alas, it was the Lompoc winery that had also made a fuss about the idea since the beginning that finally pulled the trigger. Bang.
There’s a little bit of history there: In January 2020, Flying Goat left the association because it wasn’t getting the support it wanted, owner Kate Griffith told the Sun at the time. Griffith also accused the Vintners Association of proposing to become the nonprofit behind a business improvement district (BID) to make up for a lack of performance and membership attrition. But nobody’s bitter.
She was right about the membership attrition—that was something the association mentioned as part of its proposal: to find a guaranteed source of income to pay for its work.
The wine BID proposal failed in 2020, but its second major attempt was approved in 2025: A 1 percent assessment on all direct-to-consumer retail winery sales in the county now funds efforts to market Santa Barbara County wines regionally, nationally, and globally.
Griffith and Yost said that kind of marketing is exactly why they shouldn’t be forced to pay to support the BID. Flying Goat is local, local, local. Their suit against the county states that their winery is being forced to pay for speech they don’t agree with, including government lobbying and charitable causes.
“These uses do not constitute generic, nonideological commercial advertising, but are expressive, ideological, and political activities that plaintiffs are compelled to fund and associate with,” the lawsuit states, adding that it violates Griffith’s and Yost’s constitutional rights.
Specifically, the lawsuit pointed to trips that association employees took to South Korea and Japan “for the purported purpose of developing export markets and gaining international recognition, neither of which benefit plaintiffs.”
Do we think the association is looking for a canary’s help in spreading the good word about local wine? The flight would be free!
The county made sure to try and indemnify itself against a lawsuit like this when it approved the Vintners Association’s proposal, so the association might be on its own defending against the lawsuit. But the outcome of this thing could potentially impact business improvement districts all over the state, including wine BIDs in Temecula and Livermore.
Flying Goat’s lawyers say the BID violates First Amendment protections—the freedom not to associate with a private organization, the freedom not to subsidize speech it doesn’t agree with—and Fifth Amendment protections—by taking the winery’s money and redirecting it to an entity with “no legitimate public use.”
Ooh. Improving wine tasting sales isn’t a legitimate public use? That’s a real bummer. But perhaps I’ve had too much wine to see this thing clearly.
The Canary is drunk on syrah. Send shareable wine pairings to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in May 28 – June 4, 2026.