Honyocker's Perspective

20100428 Communique

Rec’d today from Mr. Schwartz:

Dear Mr. Bayless:

In your posting on your blog you ask me to point out when you have missed something pertinent.

Although I do not think that continuing the conversation is particularly constructive at this stage of events, I regret that it has become necessary to respond to your postings and emails lest my failure to respond in your chosen forum is misconstrued by you or anyone else.

I find it really depressing that the tenor of your “communiqués” on your blog and your emails suggest that you would almost welcome the possibility of an accident occurring in our neighborhood so that you can say “I told you so” and then blame us. The problem with your attempt to lay a guilt trip on us on the subject of alcohol and traffic is that you should rather lay it on yourself because of your own complicity and inaction in what is going on right now. I will explain why so that you might consider a little more introspection on the subject.

You live at 33850 Kruse Ranch Road 10.6 miles and a 26 minute drive to the north of our tasting room site.

Less than ¼ of a mile and a minute or two further down Kruse Ranch Road from your residence to the West from Seaview Road is Fritz Hagist’s Ranch at 34895 Kruse Ranch Road where he hosts the Oktoberfest Blacksmithing conference every year. That event is usually a 4 day event where hundreds of blacksmiths and others interested in blacksmithing gather every year. A great deal of beer and other alcohol is consumed there yet I have never heard you once say that Fritz should stop his Oktoberfest. I have never once heard you say the Fritz should get a use permit for his activities or do a traffic study or any of the other studies that I voluntarily conducted. No, you just conveniently ignore something that goes on a stone’s throw from your residence on a road where your children actually play. You are probably aware that there was a drunken driving accident as a result of the excessive consumption of alcohol at one of those events. How do you square that with your attacks on our project which is a 26 minute drive away?

As I happen to have an interest in blacksmithing I think that the Oktoberfest is a wonderful event that encourages artisanal blacksmithing and social interaction. The event also brings people into the area and helps the local hotels, commerce and employment on the coast. It supports the arts and helps the community. Do you not consider those as positives?

There is currently a lot of alcohol consumed both on the Ridge and along Highway One at the many restaurants and places that sell alcohol where it is consumed on the premises as well as purchased for consumption later on the Ridge. I have seen local travelers throw beer cans out their truck and car windows. I regularly have to go along Meyers Grade and pick up empty beer cans that have been thrown out of passing vehicles and are trashing the neighborhood. So the suggestion that no one travelling our roads has any connection with alcohol is just not accurate

There are community events where beer, wine or champagne are sold or served from time to time. What are you doing to stop all the other alcohol consumption on the ridge and on Highway One? Have you ever protested about any of those?

Some say that they do not want one more car on the road. There are a number of other professionals, artists and artisans in the neighborhood that have retail businesses, studios, offices and even signs on the road that have lots of visitors and customers? The ridge is full of examples. Do you want them to all be required to go through the time consuming and expensive legal processes and hearings that I have done in order to follow the law? I would prefer not to interfere with what others have done but I resent attacks on our project which has painstakingly followed the proper process.

Are you and those who may share your opposition at this time going to require that everyone on the ridge who has not done so to date should now apply for permits and go through the whole expensive official process that I had to go through? We are after all “a country of laws not and not of men” Are you going to insist on a level playing field? Should I?

Is it wise for people in glass houses should not throw stones? I think that it is it is a dangerous and provocative practice and can have some very significant unintended consequences.

Please post this response your Blog.

Having responded as you have forced me to do and I would now like to conclude the conversation and move on. I would like to make peace with you if you are willing to reciprocate. It may surprise both of us that we probably have more in common than separates us. Again I ask that you come over to the site and meet with me so we can discuss things and possibly get to know each other in person rather than continue an abstract conversation in the ether. If you wish to meet please let me know.

Lester Schwartz

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Jake’s comments:

I’m sorry, I have work to do today that overrides my ability to respond point by point in belabored detail as I would wish… but here is a quick bullet retort, Mr. Schwartz:

#1:  My position remains that what your existing plan intends to do is willingly introduce a greater risk of the hazard of unfamiliar and inebriated drivers on the roads we rely upon.  I still can think of a myriad of ways you can accomplish your business wishes and still not have an active tasting room on Meyers Grade Road – a wholly inappropriate place for a tasting room.

#2: Fritz Hagist is a wonderful man, a longtime active member of the community (certainly longer than me), and someone who has earned the respect and admiration of his neighbors in the always kind, respectful and upstanding manner with which he conducts himself.  If what you are doing is some veiled threat towards his convention, his well being, rest assured that the community would come together in a heartbeat to make certain that his work as an artist, a teacher, a friend, neighbor and blacksmith would continue just as it has for decades.

And no, Fritz’s blacksmith event occurs once a year, and I have personally witnessed what you suggest to be wholly inaccurate:  the weekend event does not put drinking people onto the roads.  And if it did, I’m certain Fritz would do like the rest of us and require designated drivers.  He respects his neighbors safety.  You might have known this if you actually were interested, like so many of us are, and have shown up to see.  I’ll go ahead and call your bluff.

#3: You write to me as if I’m a tee-totaler… Not the case.  Beer, wine, parties, fun, naked women – all great things!  Of course, when done responsibly.   I suggested this to you months ago – while everyone I am working with has slightly different rationales for being opposed to your tasting room – my personal opposition is one that I know to be the case:  When people drink wine at tasting rooms, they generally ALWAYS leave slightly inebriated, and rarely have designated drivers.   Frankly, I think there’s room in our society for that in MANY places.      A driver having .02 BAC is fine – we all know – in most cases, in most adults, and on most roads.   But NOT on Meyers Grade, Fort Ross, Seaview, Hauser Bridge, Kruse Ranch, King Ridge, and many others – and certainly not for folks unfamiliar with the roads.  It’s as clear as day to me.

#4:  We all try to do our part to keep the roads clean from the n’er-do-wells who toss their garbage.  Good job.

#5:  There are all kinds of community events that involve social drinking!  It’s a great neighborhood!  And, inasmuch as I have personally witnessed, the vast majority of said events involve overnight camping (weddings, holidays, etc) and designated drivers, and all sorts of things to cope with what WE ALL know to be true:  the roads are unsafe with any level of alcohol in our systems.  Again, I’ll simply point out for the crowd that this bluff won’t work either.  I’ve only been a part of this coastal family for a decade or so… and in that time I have witnessed your attendance exactly zero times at any of these remarkable community events.  I’m sure I missed something you have attended or participated with… but we both know that’s just another bluff.

#6:  Unintended consequences?  As in: if I or the opposition group continue to push against your project you might start your litigious ways that everyone knows you have a penchant for?

For such an oblique threat, Mr. Schwartz, you can quote me any time you like – you’re an asshole.

You give me and so many people every imaginable reason to oppose a project that shouldn’t have been allowed to be initiated in the first place.  I look forward to following every procedural & legal remedy to make certain you come to the understanding that you are wrong, and friendly, courteous, righteous neighbors shall prevail.  We are a land of laws, and you have pushed against the boundary of permissible legal manipulation.

~jake

04 | 28 | 2010 Posted by jake | schwartz-o-rama | Leave a Comment