Coastal wineries
EDITOR: I agree with Kirsten Cutler (“Protecting rural areas,” Letters, Oct. 12). Our coastal hills need stronger protection from industrial enterprises such as wineries in areas where roads are too small, water too scarce and the environment too fragile to accommodate more development.
Emergency services cannot deal with the tourism as it is on the coast, so rezoning and allowing more wineries on our scenic coastal hills would be a big mistake.
Supervisor Efren Carrillo wrote recently in defense of the Local Coastal Plan that there are only three acres planted in grapes on the coast and no wineries. Yet advertising at the Sonoma County airport claims there are 500 acres on the coast and wineries from which you can see the ocean. Who is he trying to fool with this mumbo-jumbo?
I say expand the protections for our precious Sonoma County Coast, and don’t allow any more wineries to take root on hillsides they don’t belong. It’s time that we separate alcohol-producing viticulture from food-producing agriculture. We need a Neil Young song about this stuff.
VICTOR K. SUND
Jenner
image credit: http://sonomacounty.ca.gov/Fire-and-Emergency-Services/