Court Opinion

ID: 9727993
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:54:39.72596+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:44.856577
License: Public Domain

SUNDBY, J.
(concurring). I agree with the majority that the judgment of the trial court shall be affirmed. I write separately to disabuse the county of any idea that the trial court's judgment extends as far as the county would like. The county argues that fish farming is not a permitted use in the conservancy district of the county's shoreland protection ordinance. It also argues that if raising fish is a permitted use in the conservancy district, a person may not build an otherwise conforming building "which may be used to store the catch for eventual transportation to another location for eventual sale."
But these arguments by the county are not properly before us. The judgment provides:
It is further ordered and adjudged that an injunction is hereby issued prohibiting the defendants from the operation of a retail commercial operation of a trout farm and from the sales of fish and fee fishing operation in its entirety, said injunction against such operations on the defendant's property....
*192Pursuant to this injunction, all signage pertaining to the enjoined operation shall be removed by the Adams County Sheriffs Department....
Thus, the trial court enjoined the "retail commercial operation" of a trout farm, but did not enjoin the Romeos from operating a fish farm. In fact, the trial court " applaud [ed], commend [ed] and encourag[ed]" Romeo and his mother for starting a small business. The court concluded that "it would appear that the raising of fish . . . would be a proper use and it would also appear that the building by the defendants on the premises would qualify."
We do not review that conclusion because it was not necessary to the court's decision. But the court further concluded that sales of fish or fish products, sales of jams, fishing for a fee, and signs advertising these commercial activities were not permitted uses. It is this conclusion that we review. I agree with the court's conclusion.
If fish farming is a permitted use in the conservancy district, and I conclude that it is, I see nothing in the law which prohibits the Romeos from using an otherwise conforming building to prepare fish for market. A dairy farmer frequently maintains a building separate from the barn to cool and keep his or her milk. An egg rancher may maintain a building separate from the chicken house to candle and package eggs. Of course these are commercial activities, but they are agricultural commercial activities. A rigid definition of "commercial" would exclude all agricultural activities, except growing crops and raising animals for personal consumption. That surely is not the intent of the county's ordinance or the Department of Natural Resources' rules.
*193I conclude that the commercial fish farm activities which are not permitted in the conservancy district are either those which are not agricultural — fishing for a fee, for example — or on-site sales to consumers of fish, fish products, or other products unrelated to fish farming.