The proposal for Santa Barbara County wineries to impose a self-assessment on their sales in order to pay for marketing and advocacy was presented to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, the latest step in a process that began back in April 2018 and may be implemented as soon as January 2021. The initiative, which would require more than 50 percent of the county’s licensed wineries to support the fee, would establish a Business Improvement District (BID) that, as currently proposed, would levy a 1.5 percent fee on all tasting-room sales.
A recent straw poll conducted by the Santa Barbara Vintners — the nonprofit organization that would see its annual funding increased by more than $1 million by the fee — suggested that more than 60 percent of wineries were in support of the idea, which is now being called the Santa Barbara Wine Preserve. The push to do so is because Santa Barbara struggles to competitively market the region against other wine countries such as Paso Robles, Napa, and Temecula, whose members pay much more in dues and receive much more support and tourists.
The BID model is used frequently by hotels to promote tourism to specific regions, and it is the major source of funding for Visit Santa Barbara and other agencies of that sort. Supportive vintners hope that, if the majority of wineries support the idea and there is no opposition from individual jurisdictions — as the county and affected cities must also approve of the assessment’s collection — the BID could be in place by January.