101524 Tiffany Weber

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
All right, everybody, good to have you.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
A second hour of today's broadcast is upon us, and
Jimmy is my name.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Pleasured, pleased, and thrilled.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
I am to be here and hopefully you're feeling the
same way about being where you're at. It's Tuesday morning,
the fifteenth day of October, a year of our Lord,
twenty twenty four, and again, glad to have you here
on the radio show. All Right, got a couple of stories.
We've got ballots flying all across Colorado, and again, keep

(00:41):
you educated on as much as we can do the research,
the down ballots, the up ballots, and again I encourage
you to not just vote for the top the president,
the congress people, those are the easy ones, but you've
got to kind of figure out who a lot of
time state legislators are, state senators, you need to figure
out propositions, amendment, county commissioners. I mean, there's just a

(01:01):
lot of different things on your ballot, and you need
to do the research and take some time and be thoughtful,
be methodical and vote. You're conscious and yeah, vote, but
these are long ballots, so we want to give you
as much information on this show as possible. I'll play
some audio in Just a Moment with Leslie Hollywood talking

(01:21):
about Mountain Lions Proposition one twenty seven. I'm a no
vote on that. But there's another issue that I'll often
say that a lot of times our local government's got
things wrong. We know, we can talk about Fauci and
we can talk about the COVID and the devastation that
happened nationally, education shut down and stuff, But a lot

(01:42):
of that came back to the States. It came back
to governor Polus, came back to school boards, the county commissioners,
that came back to Pewter schools, et cetera. And these
people ended up affecting businesses and they ended up not
being friendly to small businesses. And you've seen a lot
of restaurants closed, and you see a lot of businesses
have been driven out. A lot of that started with

(02:03):
the suffering of shutting them down during the COVID. Well,
you would think that in the bounce back, you'd think
that in the return as just trying to help local
businesses get back on their feet, that the strong arm
of government would have lightened up and that they would
not be heavy handed. Well, Tiffany Webber is a owner
of a local winery and a wine tasting room, and

(02:26):
she found out that the Larber County Board of Commissioners
was a little heavy handed. I wanted her to tell
her story because elections have consequences, and when you put
people on boards of commission or city council or school board, whatever,
you put people on these boards that, for some reason
maybe seem a little power hungry, maybe they don't really

(02:47):
care about the local business, they just want to get
their point across. It ends up hurting local businesses. So
let me bring up Tiffany Weber, my guest here in
this segment. Tiffany, welcome to the program. Thanks for taking
time to be on today.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
Thanks me, good morning, Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
Good morning.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
First of all, I want you to give the name
of your business. You own the You own a winery
and a tasting room, and just kind of familiarize what
your business is and then we can kind of get
into your story. What.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
Yes, So, my husband and I own and operate Blendings Winery.
We are in North Fork, Collins, just off of Overland Trail.
We purchase that property in November of twenty twenty.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
So Blending's Winery and you also have a tasting room there,
and that's kind of where the saga begins.

Speaker 3 (03:37):
Correct, that's correct. Yes, Yes, we've got a winery, a
tasting room, and we do have a full operational vineyard
permitting there on that property is for manufacturing, so we
do grow grates, just actually make wine there on property.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
So something happened, and it was just something happened that
there was a balloon that almost cost you your business.
And I want you to kind of tell this story.
A balloon, that's right, a balloon, a party balloon that
almost cost your business. What happened and give us the
details here?

Speaker 3 (04:15):
Sure, sure, for a little bit of history. We are
in a rural residential area in Larama County, so it's
not like a downtown business. When you have a rural
residential operation, you need to go into the county and
present a business plan, proof of concept, and have a
lot of studies done to make sure that this business

(04:35):
is viable in the area that you wanted in road studies,
traffic studies, septic studies, lots of different studies to make
sure that the business is okay where you're asking it
to be. This has all approved in twenty fifteen for
the property at Blending's Winery. So when my husband I
purchased this in twenty twenty, it came along with all

(04:56):
of those permits. So with that we have undergone several
different interpretations from the commissioners and Larimer County. One of
those when we purchased the business in twenty twenty was
that the business is no longer able to do events
to host events, So interpret that however you will. That's

(05:19):
what we were told by the county. Now keep in
mind from twenty fifteen to twenty twenty, they did, they
had events, they were able to operate as the permit read.
So with that, we opened up our business in July
of twenty twenty one under new ownership and we're doing wonderfully.
We were having customers and it was a great time.

(05:42):
We were learning the line business, really getting it and
know and enjoy our customers. In May of twenty twenty one,
that was graduation week with Carbo State University and we
had some reservations coming in just for a case thing.
But we on the property, it's just under six acres,

(06:05):
and what we think happened is one of our customers
just when of a regular came in and they were
meeting some family there. But she tried a balloon to
the front porch of our winery. I'm assuming it was
wayfinding for the rest of the family, so they knew
which building she was in. But either way, that balloon,

(06:26):
one of our neighbors took a picture of it, sent
it into the county, and that balloon then signified that
we hosted a private event in our tasting room. That
was interpreted by Laram accounting that we could not have
the result of that was the commissioner for six months of.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
Operations because somebody put a balloon up there to kind
of say, hey, the graduation graduates in here. Not a
private event at all, just some family getting together and
people brought the person gifts. But you're not hosting an event.
You're just people had gathered on their own and having
a little wine tasting is a celebration, but it's not
an event you're putting on or hosting. And that balloon,
some bad neighbor snaps the photo. Larimer County boarding commissioners,

(07:09):
so they went straight to a six month business ban.
Kind of talk about that. What were the options? I mean,
they didn't give you a letter and ask for clarification.
You didn't have your day of adjudication. I mean that
they just kind of rendered their verdict.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
Or what happened.

Speaker 3 (07:24):
Sure, so, yes, we did get a letter saying that
our license was under you know, they were looking at
revoking our license. They wanted us to come in explain
our side of the story. So we went in for
our day in court, if you will. We gathered all
of our evidence. I told my staff we were going
to be just fine. This is a normal day of business.

(07:46):
I gathered up all of the customers that we had
in We have plenty of ring footage outside to show
that customers were coming and going, grabbed our transaction reports
to show that there were multiple customers. I thought we
were going to I have no issues whatsoever, no private events,
just a normal day of operation with one balloon that

(08:07):
was up for twelve minutes out front set up in court.
Went in and the commissioners told us that, you know,
they they trusted their staff, and their staff had reported
from our neighbor that we in fact did have a
private event. Code enforcement was there. They said that we

(08:31):
had a private event. I'm not sure if the commissioners
even looked at all of the evidence that we had
submitted in all of the ring cameras showing people walking in,
but they deemed us having a private event from that
balloon and we were shut down.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
So what is your what was your recourse at that
moment you said you were shut down for six minutes?
Was was this a unanimous decision by the bord of
county commissioners? Was there anybody on that bord of county
commissioners that was on your side?

Speaker 3 (09:02):
Yeah, we were shut down for six months. We were
shut down from July until January. And there was some discussion.
John to Follows was in favor of definitely a lesser penalty.
Jody shot up very much wanted a permit taken away.

(09:26):
She didn't want us to operate anymore. So there was
some discussion, but at the end it was a unanimous
decision that the balloon signified price event and we needed
to be punished.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
So was the punishment six months or did you get out?
And did was this an appeal or do they say
you're going to do six months?

Speaker 3 (09:45):
Oh, there was no appeal on the process. That wasn't
even an option. It was six months of closure.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
Wow, Well, what does that do I mean?

Speaker 2 (09:53):
That's you know, a tasting room is part of your business,
your business model.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
What did that do to affect you?

Speaker 2 (09:59):
I mean, does that that probably puts a little bit
of strain on your business?

Speaker 3 (10:04):
Oh? Devastated. That devastated our business. I had to go
back and tell our employees that we were shut down.
They all lost their jobs. We laid off twenty three
people that day. Yeah, it was horrible. It was horrible.
Nobody could understand that was there that day, that was
operating with us within the rules that we had been given.

(10:25):
Why why they'd be getting shut down. It was just
an interpretation and just a reminder in our permit it
does not say that we cannot have private events. Private
events happen at all of the other winery. Private events
should be allowed. But at any rate, we were okay

(10:51):
with their interpretations, following their rules, and it was just
another day of operation. But it just brought up a
lot of questions on overreach and government total reach and
why Larimer.

Speaker 2 (11:02):
County Border Commissioners. If you don't know, if you live
in Larimer County, you should know, it's only three people.
It's three people that basically decide the It's not like
a committee of nine. A lot of commit counties have
larger border commissions.

Speaker 1 (11:14):
These are three.

Speaker 2 (11:14):
People that really have undue influence and power, and if
they have tyrannical influences or tendencies, then they're going to
use this power butt broker box of three people in
such a huge county to do nasty things. You said,
John Cafollis was for a lesser penalty, but Jody Shattick
McNally was the one in District three that was really
I mean she she wanted to shut you down, even

(11:36):
though you have video that this balloon stayed up for
twelve minutes, you have ring camera photo and Jody Shattick
McNally wanted to drive your ass out of business.

Speaker 3 (11:46):
Well, she said several times during that meeting she needs
to be punished. We need to punish her. She had
a private event punish her, and at one point she
even talked about backtowing our grapes out. She wanted us.
It was it was pretty heavy handed. It was really
really sad, and I really questioned the interpretation. It was harsh.

Speaker 2 (12:10):
Yeah, that's amazing to have a Board of County commissioner
is not going to say punish this business owner. Punisher punisher.
She had a balloon up. But she actually on the
record and we have audio that that's a public meeting
of Jody Shaddick McNally threatened to go in and wanted
to go too the backco and destroy your grapes.

Speaker 3 (12:29):
That came up at the meeting. But yeah, during during
the audio video of the commissioners meeting with that land use, yeah,
she was definitely for punishment.

Speaker 2 (12:40):
Well, uh, there is an election coming up in November
and Jody Shaddick McNally, I believe it was on the
ballot in Larimer County. I'm guessing that she's not going
to receive your vote there for the county commissioner to
be returned to the seat because those are tyrannical like
of she should be. How do we work with businesses?
How do we make things work as opposed to threatening
to backco up their grapes and drive amount of business

(13:03):
a business I mean is it doesn't sound like that's
what the person you want as a county commissioner that's
saying we've got to punish this business owner.

Speaker 3 (13:12):
Right, the residents of Larenmer County deserves small businesses to
be able to visit in Larimer County small businesses, we
generate tax dollars we paid commercial taxes. You know, we
also help generate into the revenue for Larimer County. And yes,
we need business friendly commissioners in Larimer County when when

(13:37):
small businesses are thriving, thrive, and we want that for
Larimer County. And that's why you took a stand. And
just voters in Laramer County deserve to know. They need
a peace under the bedsheets too. They need to understand
what's going on with these commissioners and the hearing because
it's not in the main the people get to see

(14:00):
this stuff. But if they bring it to the attention
and let people know what's going on, maybe, just maybe
they'll take a second looks when they're looking at that
bollot and think about business owners in Lama County.

Speaker 1 (14:12):
It's District three.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
Jody Shaddick McNally is the one, and I can post
up I think we found the YouTube here of her screaming.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
Gave must be punished.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
And you just have to ask yourself because people a
lot of times will ignore the ballot issues and they'll
ignore county commissioners. But if you live in Larimer County.
You've got three people that if any of those three
or two of those three have tyrannical like tendencies like
I've seen on display from the aforementioned businesses, are in
trouble there. I mean, if she has a personal vendetta.

(14:42):
By the way, did you have any personal interaction? Do
you know why she was so heavy handed and why
she wanted to literally destroy you and she didn't even
think twice about causing you to lay off twenty six
people in one day. Was there any clues to what
what made her mad?

Speaker 3 (15:00):
We had no personal interaction with Jody's shot up at all.
We operated the business within the guideline. And just so
you know, to Jimmy, after we opened back up after
about six months polishment, we opened back up in May.
They came back in July and told it they taken

(15:21):
another reinterpretation of our permit and this time the reinterpretation
of our special permit meant that we can only have
eleven cars per day at our location.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
Well, and this is again three people that have undue
influence and power. And why that commission board is not
larger to get more voices, I don't know, But unfortunately
that magnifies the voice of people like Jody Shaddock. Tiffany Weber,
I appreciate you coming on the program. I will let
people know that that's District three, and again, just try
to educate people. You've got to ballot in Larimer County

(15:56):
and you might want to skip the Board of County Commissioners.

Speaker 1 (15:59):
Don't do it.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
There is a there is an alternative candidate on there.
I'll try to get Jody Shattick on the program. I'm
see if she'll reach out to her, see if she'll
come on the program. But there is a candidate running
in District three. His name is Ben Asked Ben Asked
or asked he and he's he's running in District three
and running against Jody Shattick.

Speaker 1 (16:20):
Just an FYI, that's an alternative on your ballot. Tiffany.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
I appreciate your You're coming on the program, and if
folks want to learn more about your business, it's Blending's Winery.
Is there a website, Yes's Winery Blendingswinery dot com. Tiffany,
I appreciate you coming on the program today. Thank you
very much, and let me reach out to Tiffany to
Jody Shattick and see if she'll come on the program.

(16:44):
But Ben, his name is uncle Benny. I think his
signs say and he's We'll reach out to him, get
him scheduled up on the program as well. But again
it's just drawing your attention to what can happen. Appreciate
Tiffany Webber being on the program. Their website Blendingswinery dot com,
Blendwinery dot com. And we'll follow this. Again, just trying

(17:04):
to educate you as the options you have on your ballot,
and don't skip some of these lines. Don't skip them.
I've seen the video of Jody Shaddock. It's an unhinged person.
Punish him, Punish them. They need to be shut down,
driven out of business. Yeah, I'm surprised.

Speaker 1 (17:23):
Mourner. Her middle name is Karen. I'll be back. Laky
six hundred case col