Central Pa. winery owner says court order closing business came from ‘out of the blue’

It was only a few weeks ago that Jim Miller, the owner of Moon Dancer Winery in eastern York County, was celebrating the producer’s 20th anniversary.

On Sunday, he was talking on the phone over the din of a crowd that had gathered for a last hurrah following the news that began circulating Friday that the business at 1330 Klines Run Road in Lower Windsor Township near Wrightsville would be closing temporarily.

The winery was forced to close as a result of a court order stemming from a legal dispute regarding the use of the winery’s farm property on Klines Run Road, the business said in a news release that every news organization in southcentral Pa. picked up.

“The social media response has been comforting,” Miller said on the phone Sunday afternoon, “but it doesn’t necessarily solve the problem at this point.”

For now, Moon Dancer said it is seeking permission from the court to reopen as soon as possible, with a goal of remaining in operation while litigation continues. But when that would happen or if that can happen or what Miller can still do on his 50-acre property that includes 10 acres of vines and makes around 20,000 gallons of wine per year that’s distributed through, among other place, the Fine Wine & Good Spirits stores were all unanswered questions on Sunday afternoon.

It’s a culmination of a dispute that writer Mike Argento covered quite thoroughly in his story published Friday in the York Daily Record.

Miller said Sunday that he was limited by what he could say by the ongoing litigation that has been going on for a handful of years. But, he said, “We thought [the issue] was dead in the water and all of a sudden got hit with this court order four days after our 20th anniversary on [May] 25th completely out of the blue.”

As for any hope that there’s a prompt solution to the problem, Miller said, “You always try to be optimistic but at some point, you’ve got to be realistic. You don’t know from day to day where this will ultimately end up. I’d like to see it resolved and put to bed once and for all. But now at this point we have no choice but to close up at the end of business today and [make] our pleadings with the court and see what happens.”

But when and if? That’s another matter altogether.

“I’ve come up with so many hypothetical scenarios,” said Miller, who has owned the property that offers a birds-eye view of the Susquehanna River since 1998. “And that’s the frustrating thing about it, not only that after 20-plus years you’ve got to sit down with your family and say we’re now prevented from running our business, but you’ve got to relay that to all your customers and then sit down with your employees as you come into the busy summer season and say ‘as of the close of Sunday, we’re no longer able to employ you until further notice and if you need a reference to go somewhere else, we’re more than happy to do that.’ “

Not that any time is good for a business to shut its doors, but the timing for Moon Dancer couldn’t be worse. Its dozen employees now will be looking for other jobs and any high school or college students looking for seasonal work no doubt will reroute to other businesses. Its well-known summer concert series scheduled to start this week has been put on hold, and Miller said that he has been asking local venues that he has a relationship with to see if they can serve as the backup for the variety of private events such as weddings and rehearsal dinners scheduled through the summer.

In addition, some of those events are booked a year or two in advance, so anyone beginning to search will be looking elsewhere.

On the wine side, this is the time of the year to make arrangements with other wineries and vineyards to sell or buy grapes, and Miller added that they were finally getting comfortable with an Italian bottling line they purchased two years ago that would enhance the release some hard sodas and hard ciders that planned. In addition, he said, they were looking after the anniversary celebration to begin pulling out vines that are nearing 30 years old and replacing them.

Everything, at least for now, is on hold.

This is the third major Pa. wine venue that has been in the news over the past few months over business-related matters. Chaddsford Winery, one of the state’s “old guard” producers, announced in mid-March that it was up for sale for $4.5 million, and then in mid-May Spring Gate Winery & Vineyards first announced it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and a few days later went on the market for $4.9 million. Both are still operating.

Meanwhile, Penn Shore Winery & Vineyards in Erie County experienced a fire in its tasting room the day before it was scheduled to host several days of activities connected to the solar eclipse. The repairs are ongoing at Penn Shore, one of the first two wineries in the state to get its license in 1969, but tastings and events are continuing there.

That is not the case for Moon Dancer, which will be removing all of its signs and closing off the driveways, “including the new driveway that we put in three, four years ago to mitigate any other driveway issues that had been alleged prior to that,” Miller said. “We acquired additional acreage that now we’ve got to block that entrance off as well. After spending a quarter of a million dollars to do that, that’s got to get shut down.”

Contacted Friday, one of the individuals involved in the dispute that led to court order, Matthew Balsavage, referred questions from the York Daily Record to his attorney who said the court record reflects his clients’ position on the matter.

Miller said the weekend provided much support from customers and others in the community, and that while there’s no public hearing scheduled “I know I could fill a courtroom with a presiding judge and the courtroom next to him, on either side, and the floor above and the floor below in the courthouse if we needed to for public support. But it’s just, you know, the wheels of justice move slow and they also move at their own pace.”