May 13 should have been the day that Caltrans starting eliminating left-hand turns on Highway 101 at El Campo Road and three other intersections between Los Berros Road and Traffic Way, but a lawsuit filed by Laetitia Vineyard and Winery’s parent company has indefinitely halted the project.
Vintage Wine Estates, which purchased Laetitia in March, filed a lawsuit in Sacramento County Court on May 7 against the state of California, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), and Papich Construction Company Inc.
Due to the legal challenge, the judge assigned to the case ordered a temporary stay on the El Campo project while the case is in litigation—stopping it indefinitely.
Days after the lawsuit was filed, James Grant—whose seven-month advocacy spurred the closure discussion after his son, Jordan Grant, was fatally injured in October 2018—called for a boycott of Laetitia Winery and all other wineries owned by Vintage Wine Estates.
“We called for a boycott as we recognized that this was an intentional business decision by Vintage Wine Estates to try to maintain wine tasting traffic,” Grant said in an email interview. “Even though with the expected safety changes, their customers would still have had access to their winery, but some would have to drive a little farther.”
Grant also started a petition on May 10 on change.org to boycott the winery and parent company; as of press time, the petition had more than 2,400 signatures.
The lawsuit, obtained by New Times, states that Vintage Wine Estates seeks to compel Caltrans to properly analyze, disclose, and mitigate the significant adverse environmental impacts associated with the closure of the four intersections—El Campo Road, Tower Grove Drive/Laetitia Drive, Hemi Road, and an unnamed road.
In the suit, Vintage alleges that Caltrans violated California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) by failing to prepare an environmental impact report and/or mitigated negative declaration for the project, failing to adopt feasible mitigation measures, failing to analyze alternatives to the project, and approving the project on the basis of findings that are not supported by substantial evidence.
The project, the lawsuit asserts, was approved based on an emergency exemption, but because there wasn’t a recent accident at Laetitia Vineyard Drive, Hemi Road, or the unnamed road, the exemption should therefore not be applicable to all of the crossings.
The lawsuit alleges that Caltrans’ deputy director for planning and local assistance has admitted that its decision to close the crossing is political and not based on an emergency.
New Times reached out to Caltrans, but officials said they didn’t have any further comment at this time.
On May 13, Vintage Wine Estates President Terry Wheatley released an open letter stating they heard the voices of the community and that the intention of the lawsuit was not to take public safety or the death of Jordan lightly.
“The lawsuit was intended to focus Sacramento on the urgent issue and not settle for a stop-gap or years-down-the-road solution,” it read. “We fell short of our responsibility to explore and communicate this to the community, and for that, we apologize.”
The letter states that the company wants an overpass, currently on a 20-year project completion timeline, to be fast-tracked by Caltrans on an accelerated five-year completion date.
The company stated that its priority is for its employees, guests, and neighbors to use the four intersections safely, but many people took to social media to say that the lawsuit was done out of greed.
Supporters of the median closures left reviews on Google, Yelp, and the Facebook pages of Laetitia Vineyard and Winery and Vintage Wine Estates.
Betsy Daly commented on Google reviews stating that the winery was putting people’s lives at risk because of the lawsuit.
“Putting both their customers and the public in danger for profit. Just what you want, a bunch of people who just went wine tasting crossing a freeway at an unsafe intersection,” the comment said.
On May 13, Grant said that the CEO of Vintage Wine Estates, Patrick Rooney, had reached out to him by phone to speak of his support for closing El Campo and his desire to resolve the problem in the next week or two.
New Times reached out to Vintage Wine Estates for comment but was told there wasn’t any additional information to release at this time. The company’s chief operational officer has been in email communication with Grant, and the chief executive officer will meet in person with Grant and neighbors sometime this week.
According to San Luis Obispo Council of Governments officials, a long-term solution to the intersections, an overpass, is in the council’s long-range plans, but there isn’t a readily available funding source to pay for a $35 million to $50 million interchange. Δ
This article appears in May 16-26, 2019.
The Grant family wanted to make the El Campo crossing safe. It’s noble. 1n 1999, CalTrans and SLOCOG added an overpass to their long range strategic plan – located just to the south of El Campo. It’s still on the plan with no start date in sight. Failure to develop infrastructure commensurate with the needs of a growing community is shameful. Worse yet, it cost a life and has contributed to many horrible injuries.
CalTrans came up with the idea of tying the partial closure of El Campo with closures all along the 101 between Arroyo Grande and Nipomo. Shutting down that long stretch of road is more than inconvenient – it puts people in peril by restricting access for emergency response. Imagine a fire truck rolling out of Arroyo Grande trying to get to an emergency on 101 north – needing to go to Nipomo to turn around first. The traffic study compiled to research the closures looked at a handful of intersections in 15 minute intervals. The emergency study did not adequately examine the impact that these closures will have on our system of roads. The CEQA laws were passed to stop government and developers from this type of shotgun decision making. Laetitia was right to ask the court to examine why CEQA was not followed.
El Campo is a very important road to people living on the Mesa. It is an outlet in the event of an emergency. For about 19 or 20 hours of each day, it is perfectly fine to make a left hand out of there. Most of all, it is part of our emergency evacuation route. I am shocked that the village of Arroyo Grande did not vote to block the closure. All of the El Campo traffic will now be funneled onto the most congested roads in the village – around the Highschool and around the Hospital.
Moreover, locals know that the Brisco entrance to 101 North is about to be rebuilt. That will shut down that 101 north entrance during construction, putting all of the mesa traffic to Grand Ave. It is going to be a nightmare.
My hope for the community is that SLOCOG will make a commitment now to fast track an overpass near el campo within the next 5 years. To shut down this access with no plan in sight to remedy the impact to our system of roads is bad governance and poor planning. Our citizens should expect more.
If you agree that an overpass is a good option – please sign the petition. https://www.change.org/p/county-of-san-lui…