A Wyoming winery is clashing with its neighbors after they successfully went out of business due to a dispute with the community’s homeowners association.
The popular Jackson Hole winery, located in the hills of the Cowboy State, is struggling to stay in business after it angered neighbors Robert Kirk and Viesia Kirk in 2022.
The Kirks won a lawsuit filed that year, alleging that it violated business regulations, forcing them to stop all business outside of Teton County despite previously shipping thousands of boxes around the world.
To stay alive, owner Bob Schroth claimed in a counterfiling that Kirk misrepresented his understanding of the winery in his lawsuit, attempting to stay in business on a technicality.
Schroth said that while Kirk claimed he never knew of the winery’s success until 2020, Kirk purchased a case of its wine and left an email in his registry in 2017.
It comes amid a bitter dispute between the two, as Schroth said. Cowboy State Diary that ‘you know, we’ve been in business for years… they just decided to do something in 2022.’
Bob Schroth, owner of Jackson Hole Winery, is countersuing his neighbors after they closed his business.
Jackson Hole Winery, a popular spot in the Wyoming hills that reportedly brings in $2 million a year, has been limited to selling wines only in Teton County after neighbors complained.
Schroth and his wife moved to their Teton County neighborhood in 1993 and began exploring the possibility of opening their winery in 2011 while seeking approval from the homeowners’ association.
The property is governed by both Teton County land use regulations and the policies of the homeowners association, which ultimately approved Schroth’s request for a petition to make wine in his barn.
But according to Kirk’s lawsuit, the winery was never permitted for its current activities, including “high-intensity wine production, bottling, packaging and shipping large volumes of wine to other for-profit destinations.”
Jackson Hole Winery ships about 4,000 cases of wine around the world each year, hosts wine tastings and weddings at its picturesque location, and reportedly generates $2 million a year.
Kirk’s lawsuit claims this violated the homeowners association’s rule on commercial businesses, which he believes could harm the region’s status as a quiet, prosperous area.
Schroth told Cowboy State Daily that he filed a countersuit on these grounds and called the lawsuit trivial because the Kirks, who reportedly live a quarter mile from the winery, do not share a private road with them.
Following a judge’s ruling, the winery is still able to make wines and conduct its own private tastings on the property, but has been forced to halt its previously successful operation.
‘They don’t go through the winery. “Our customers don’t drive by your house, so they don’t see traffic,” he stated. “They can’t see the winery, they can’t hear it… It really doesn’t affect them at all.”
In his recent filing, Schroth added: “Plaintiffs will not suffer any harm from the operation of the winery, and never have.”
The winery has faced limitations before, including a conditional use permit from the Teton County Planning Department that limited them to 30 tasting room guests per day.
According to reported court documents, the Schroths did not shy away from expanding their winery despite complaints dating back to 2013, including spending more than $600,000 on improvements to the property.
The Kirks reportedly said their lawsuit was sparked by a trip to the winery in September 2020, when they were shocked to discover how big it was.
They then tried to prevent the county from re-approving their conditional work permit in 2022, and when that didn’t work, they filed a lawsuit at the end of the year to try to stop all their activities.
The Schroths reportedly spent more than $600,000 upgrading the winery, even though it was allegedly against homeowners’ association rules.
The lawsuit went to trial in March, when Wyoming District Court Judge Peter Froelicher ruled that the Kirks were correct in their assessment of the homeowners’ association rules.
His ruling also prevented anyone who was not a member of the Schroth family from working at the winery, which Schroth said could force him to lay off four employees.
In his latest attempt to stay in business, Schroth claimed the Kirks delayed filing their lawsuit for two years and misrepresented when they learned of the winery’s expansion.
But Froelicher’s final ruling seems to make this moot, pointing out that Schroth’s argument about harm done to the Kirks is not the reason for his decision.
“Regardless of whether Jackson Hole Winery’s operations directly and physically impact the Kirks, a large and growing commercial business of making, distributing and selling wine is not consistent with the covenant,” their order said, according to the State Journal. cowboy.
