A federal judge ruled that Peninsula Township’s former restrictions on music, events, and grape sourcing violated the rights of local wineries.
Amid the bucolic vineyards and winding hills of Old Mission Peninsula in northern Michigan, a group of wineries has fought a brutal multiyear legal battle against a restrictive zoning ordinance enacted by the local township. This month, a federal judge definitively sided with the wineries, but the township officials show no signs of admitting fault.
Peninsula Township enacted a zoning ordinance in 1972, with the purpose of maintaining the rural and viticultural nature of the Old Mission Peninsula. Among other restrictions, the ordinance limited the types of events that wineries could host on-site, limited the volume of amplified music played by wineries, and mandated that all wine produced be made with at least 85 percent grapes from the peninsula itself.
As the craft beverage boom gained momentum in recent decades, wineries on the Old Mission Peninsula inevitably ran up against these limitations as they sought to expand their businesses. But Peninsula Township officials remained steadfast in their efforts to enforce the rules.
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C. Jarrett Dieterle is a nonresident senior fellow at the R Street Institute and a legal policy fellow for the Manhattan Institute.
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