Sonoma City Council has no appetite for home-based restaurants

A proposal to allow home-based restaurants to operate in Sonoma residential neighborhoods left a bad taste in the City Council’s mouth this week, as members voted 4-0 in a show of non-support for the idea.

The council’s action was in response to a request by County Administrator Sheryl Bratton for Sonoma to take an official position on whether the county should opt-in to the state’s Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operations, or MEHKO, program which allows residents to operate small-scale restaurants out of their homes.

In a July 26 letter to the City of Sonoma, Bratton said, “The Sonoma County Department of Health Services believes that a MEHKO program can be operated safely and provide economic opportunities to the community, not to mention vibrant and diverse food options.” The program would be overseen by county Department of Health Services, though any reports of city code violations – such as noise and other nuisances — would be enforced by the city.

But the Sonoma City Council showed little appetite for home-kitchen businesses at its Aug. 16 meeting. Or, as Councilmember Robert Felder said Monday: “I think it would be a total disaster for Sonoma.”

The MEHKO program has its origins in two laws approved by the state legislature – Assembly Bills 626 and 377, passed in 2018 and 2019, respectively – which allow for limited-size dine-in or takeout food businesses to operate out of private residences. The impetus for the laws was to create economic opportunities for people with culinary skills, but limited means to put them into practice.

According to the law, meals prepared would be limited to 30 per day or 60 per week, businesses would be limited to one full-time equivalent employee who is not a household or family member, food must be prepared and sold the same day and sales revenue cannot exceed $50,000 per year.

Additionally, outdoor signage or advertising is not permitted; food is sold via the internet. If the county opts in, MEHKOs would automatically be a permitted use in any private home in the county – though businesses would have to meet county health and safety requirements in order to acquire a permit.

Representatives from a pair of organizations advocating for MEHKOs spoke at the meeting, assuring the council that problems have been few and far between in jurisdictions where the program already exists.

Peter Ruddock, the policy director for the Cook Alliance, a home-cooking nonprofit which lobbied for the law, said that of the 133 home-kitchen businesses that have been permitted to operate in Riverside County, the first jurisdiction to opt in to the program, there have been no food-safety issues so far – though he was aware of two nuisance complaints.

“One dealing with a sign and one dealing with somebody putting a stand on their porch,” said Ruddock.

Roya Bagheri, policy director at foodnome.com, an online marketplace for home-based restaurants, said that in their over two years of working with more than 100 home-kitchen chefs, “there have been zero reported food-safety complaints, grease complaints or noise and traffic complaints.”

In addition to Riverside, counties that have opted in on the program include Solano, Santa Barbara, Alameda and the City of Berkeley, according to a City of Sonoma staff report. The County of San Mateo has just launched a pilot MEHKO program.

County officials are seeking feedback from all of Sonoma County’s nine cities about whether to be the latest to opt in on the program. Christine Sosko, the county director of environmental health, told the council that feedback she’d seen from other municipalities focused around questions over building- and fire-code compliance, food storage, land-use impacts, ADA compliance, parking, noise and traffic, among other concerns.

Councilmember Kelso Barnett said that when he first heard about the program he was intrigued at the idea of supporting fledgling food entrepreneurs. “But as I further learned about this proposed ordinance I realized there are extremely negative issues associated with it,” said Barnett.

Specifically, Barnett said he was troubled by how the program blurs the line between commercial and residential zoning.

“Zoning creates a semblance of order,” said Barnett. “And without order there is chaos.”

Vice Mayor Jack Ding said he liked the idea of bringing illegal home-kitchen businesses out of “the gray area” they currently operate from, but he remained concerned about monitoring food safety.

Felder, meanwhile, said he was most opposed to the city’s lack of oversight in the county-run program.

“The idea that in this small town we would have the ability for people in residential neighborhoods to provide onsite food service for unlimited hours and the only protection we would have is if it gets out of hand and there’s a little bit of a noise problem we would send out a code enforcement officer,” Felder said about the loss of local control. “I don’t see it working here in the City of Sonoma.”

County officials will compile the written responses from the cities into a report for the Board of Supervisors. Sosko said the report should be ready Sept. 14. The Board of Supervisors will then provide direction on whether to opt in on the program.

Email Jason at jason.walsh@sonomanews.com.