So if the volunteers are relabeled students, and pay $1 for the winemaking lessons, problem solved. It becomes a jobs program and the left will love it, right? Oh, and the winery, being a supporter of the jobs program can offer a full tuition to these students, and take the $1 loss on their taxes. :)

Gee, now I totally understand why people and businesses are migrating from other states to California in droves . :-)

http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/...

I can't wait to move from wild west Nevada to set up a business in civilized California so that I, too, will have the opportunity to be fined $115,000 for inadvertently violating a state law prohibiting voluntary exchange of labor for experience.

I'm not a law & order guy, I just know a lot of civil servants and I work in the defense contracting industry. Given the choice between "vast conspiracy" and "incompetence", anything involving civil servants is going to be incompetence.

They did something to pop up on a radar screen, or pissed off some "volunteers". All businesses are required to have worker's compensation in California, my suspicion is that there was never a Worker's Comp policy in force for the business, and that has teeth, but is more work to go after, so they picked an easy one. Contra Costa county is filled with the leftist liberals of the Bay Area, I'm pretty sure it was one of the volunteers...

They could have gotten around that quite easily by just being a non-profit, but generally that requires some programs for the public, charitable works, etc.. I really think it was a for-profit disguising in some way or doing something that threw up some flags.

I see it like this... you can choose to live in the Wild West of Nevada, with no social services, people working 3 8-hour shifts in a row for 3 different casinos for 24 hour work days 7 days a week for $8 an hour, or you can pay some more taxes and live somewhere that the rules may be a little more oppressive.

The business owner chose to live in California, and skirt the rules. Let's be honest, they had a winery in the San Francisco Bay Area where a 1 bedroom condo is going to be $500,000+. This isn't a few thousand square feet of play-dirt in Montana. It doesn't have much to do with an Atlas Shrugged type of thing, its about whether or not you have a legitimate business, or if its a paper-business so you can depreciate the property you live on to offset your normal income taxes (my suspicion). If its not a legitimate business, its income tax fraud and a bunch of other stuff. If you are going to take that approach, it has to be a legitimate business and do the Worker's Comp, the tax stamps in the form of a business license, and either do all the work yourself like a real entrepreneur or actually pay the workers. Another aspect in California is that interns, if not paid, can't do anything of material value to the business. If you have them out cold-calling door to door, you need to compensate them in some way. You can't have an unpaid intern digging a septic tank hole that you are going to charge $10,000 for. Why? Because why should someone be making material gain on labor and that 'labor' goes and gets welfare & Medi-Cal benefits. The assumption is that they are probably being paid... probably in cash/under the table. That would be hard to prove, so you take the easy approach. They had unpaid interns in a for-profit business, either fess-up to that, or prove you paid them (under the table) and go with a lot of tax-evasion charges.

I'm sure the owner just filed a bankruptcy on the business, and will just re-open it with a new entity so they can depreciate their personal real estate more again, but will probably pay someone 8 hours a week or whatever for what legitimate work is needed, or do it themselves, or if the labor cost is higher than the tax write-off, just forget it.

I'm sure the Lets Shrug types jump on the tax element, but taxes in California, despite having the higher end of income taxes, are otherwise pretty reasonable for real estate - its limited to 1% of the original purchase price of the property (annually) and it declines if the market value declines, but cannot ever go "up" in appreciation above the original purchase price. I don't think any other states have that protection, and most are going to be closer to 3% of the value per year... California has a large government, but we're also the 8th largest economy in the world and a little under 20% of the US population by ourselves.

My last point, is that agriculture is serious business in California... its a $50 billion industry, and only behind high tech and probably entertainment/music/films in California for size. We grow the lion's share of produce for the United States, and virtually all of the fresh produce & vegetables and nuts. If you fly over California, you notice that not an inch of land is wasted, fly over Colorado and you struggle to find some land that is actually used. We're the largest wine producer in the world, and with that comes an oversight of (that) business that is probably pretty profound. You're also talking foodstuffs for human consumption... do you want the unpaid intern sanitizing the bottles you are going to drink out of? Do you want someone with a grudge and no income with access to the wine vats? Just saying... Anywhere else in the country it would seem like a very esoteric enterprise.... here, it's something that is actively-managed.

ah, a law and order guy. there could be something bigger-someone has a vendetta against them -maybe a larger competitor. your trust in government is not rational.
Here is a reference to other wineries who use volunteers. It's a widely accepted practice in the industry.
http://www.mercurynews.com/my-town/ci_26...

This is terrible! I hope that the vintners go to the Institute of Justice or a similar group to counter-sue the state. I have done volunteer work without pay a number of times in my life, in order to learn something about a craft: once at an orchid farm, once in an armory, various other venues as well. I know hundreds of people who are teaching and learning skills under similar circumstances - in California.

I doubt that the volunteers thought they were being hired. The brewers I know do not imply that they will hire their apprentices, who are there to learn the secrets of brewing great beer, and already have day-jobs of their own.

There is a thick web of volunteerism amongst practitioners of non-mainstream crafts and skills. If this despicable attempt by the State goes unopposed, it could have a devastating effect on the willingness of craft masters to share their expertise.

Jan

They are much more interested in chasing people like Abe Allizadeh. The impact from that guy is far and wide, even my mother's neighbor in her condo in Minnesota was a victim, seems he was in the 'investor pool' and lost everything. There is always something more to these stories, in all likelihood, the non-payment of wages might have been just the easiest thing to prove to shut them down too. Again, you only see a small part of the story.

http://www.sacbee.com/2014/03/04/6207610...

This is a failure of the media. this should be common knowledge and she should resign.

I seriously doubt the state was worried about the taxes on a couple of people...we have millions of illegals here. It was more about the worker's comp, the need to clamp down on an industry that seemed to be abusing it, and I'm sure there were complaints. "Netting" $11,000 a year can actually be pretty substantial. If they "netted" $11,000 a year after paying salaries for the "paid" folks and owners of ridiculous amounts, while relying on free labor, it would be rather oppressive and the state would definitely step in to shut down the practice. There is the other angle to look at, that it disrupts the free market for the businesses that pay their workers and earn a profit - Gallo, all of Napa Valley, etc.

I've known a few winery owners, all of them have been family-owned & run and the family members help out at harvest and maybe they have a few paid workers to tend to the grapes year-round. This would be the first I've heard of "volunteers". I agree, there were no-doubt some kind of promises made and probably not kept.

I don't immediately jump to conclusions on this stuff when you only see part of the story, or a very small part of one side's view. I've seen some very unethical stuff in business, being an entrepreneur doesn't immediately make you ethical. It was more than likely a tax-shelter type business to pay for a multi-million dollar property and a lot of "promise" of help in the industry in exchange for free labor or something. No doubt, someone cried foul.

This is so unfortunate. So if they had organized as a non-profit and paid themselves a small salary, as a small church might do, it would have been okay? Or what if they bought some equipment and didn't make a profit?

If they insist on such strict regulations, they should at least have give people a warning and a chance to make their operation legal. Otherwise it's just discouraging people from voluntarily serving one another.

thank you Gary! exactly.

I'm waiting for them to tell businesses they can't leave the state-
http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2...

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013...

Actually, that was our biggest regret. We liked most of the people who worked for us, except the jerk who courted the union. Some of the employees got together and tried to run a similar business based on what they had learned working for us. It lasted less than three months.

I'm with you. I saw "volunteers" complaining on boards that they agree to volunteer, hoping that full time positions will come available. When they don't, well, they get pretty mad. The picture of the winery I saw attached to another article did show it surrounded by grapes. But they could be buying most of their grapes. The state official who was interviewed for the local paper said two things. 1. Those volunteers should have paid taxes 2. there should have been workman's comp. It's a dangerous industry. 3. the law does not provide that the state warn a business of this before they fine the business. There were dozens of other wineries doing the same thing, who abruptly stopped their programs. If the goal was ultimately to get more tax revenue, they have failed. The winery will lay off workers who may end up as state burdens. fail

Unfortunately, fighting it would have easily bankrupted the little operation as well, but I was the victim of some dramatically over-reaching state bureaucrats. There isn't any "thought" going into that stuff, something flags and they throw the kitchen sink in response. I was once "fined" for unpaid back employment taxes from 2008-2009 for a 'staff' I had in Fresno, CA. I had closed that office in 2007, there was no 'staff'. I had to show up to the meeting, take pictures of the old office showing that some other company was operating there now, and payroll records and copies of the termination letters. I was like "duh, there's a recession going on ... I know the state employees are rather immune to that... " It was discharged rather quickly, but there is a lot of complexity to running a state of 40 million people and a government in the 360,000'ish range (leaner than the feds thankfully). They operate on databases and complaints, there isn't any "investigation" being done. Prove them otherwise and they go away quickly.

I guess I'm a little surprised to see a winery in Contra Costa County... Contra Costa is East Bay Area... Oakland, Alameda, etc.. Not a lot of farmland there... not any at all. It would be a ¼ acre of grapes or something, probably about the size of the hobby farm I have in the backyard.

My suspicion is that one of the "volunteers" reached out to the labor board complaining in hopes of getting a bunch of back-pay or something. Otherwise, there really isn't any way that anyone is going to 'detect' the ¼ acre of grapes and some hobby wines being made.

What if the volunteers were in the country illegally? I think they would have just looked the other way. If the State of California would close its border to illegal immigrants I am guessing their tax revenue would increase substantially.

California is desperate for 2 things - Money and Control. They don't want private industry as their competition... which is why they pull stunts like this, charge abhorrent taxes and fees for those wanting to start and run a business ($800 a year to file as a corporation? Bonkers!!!) - they want ALL power and control and industry coming from their so-called benevolence.

this will lead to one or more of 3 things - an underground economy (under-the-table businesses), black-market jobs, and a division of the state between the moocher and the producer.

Just be glad the state didn't fine you for going out of business... costing them all those "good, hardworking union jobs"...

the California legislators are disparate for money now so they did this now. grass is being sold in Colorado for the same reason, it matters not that the auto accident rate has climbed. they just want the money. it is and always will be for the money where government is concerned. why any one stays in business in California is amazing to me.

What else would you expect in Moon Child Land? In the socialist land of Calipornia everything belongs to the state.
Their all building a High Speed Passenger Railroad on our nickel in that bankrupt political rat hole.

We closed a mail-order firm after the union wanted in. We only had 18 employees at that time and we looked over the rules of compliance the union showed us. If we complied. it would be the union running our business, not us. We went on to a different type of business that only needed three employees. That was when we were still a relatively free country.

From the article, "People are hard pressed to claim their freedom when voluntarism is outlawed; when they are forbidden from voluntarily exchanging one commodity for another without a portion being confiscated."

Taxation is just a euphemism for slavery.

Spend-crazy California appears to be desperate for revenue and making examples toward their soulless socialist ends.

So is this the end of the great American tradition of volunteerism. A lesson that big Government doesn’t care and only wants their pound of flesh.

Your time on Earth belongs to the State. That fellow who volunteered to learn wine-making was just being selfish and not thinking how he could help society. Marx would be proud. I'm rapidly losing hope we can destroy socialism in America without bloodshed.