Longtime pumpkin patch owner runs afoul of Yolo

Bob Kirtlan feels he is under siege. If he stumbles over his words, he apologizes and says, "My mind is like Jell-O" because he can't sleep.

He talks about the "Gestapo" raid of his 1,000-acre property in June, how his farm remains "under attack" by Yolo County officials who he says fail to grasp the old-fashioned values of the family farmer.

In recent days, the fifth-generation Clarksburg farmer has hired a lawyer, been to court, faced the closure of a popular segment of his business and, to top it off, learned that authorities want him and his wife to turn themselves in to face criminal charges.

And those charges?

They could be summed up this way: operating a pumpkin patch without a permit.

In fact, the folksy Kirtlan, 56, has been running the show at the Silver Bend Pumpkin Patch for 25 years without incident. A visit to the farm has become an October tradition for many school groups and families, attracting 20,000 or more visitors every autumn. They come for the train ride, the tour of the grounds and, best of all, the chance to pick their own pumpkins. Kirtlan's wife helps with the tour. Their son drives the train. One of their daughters and her dog take tickets out front.

Dressed in a plaid shirt and blue jeans and sporting a thick walrus mustache, Kirtlan offers a taste of the rural life to all those city slickers from nearby.

He teaches children where food comes from (not the grocery store) and likes to emphasize the values of yesteryear he hopes to preserve – courtesy, kindness and common sense among them.

But one thing Kirtlan apparently never thought to do was get a business license or apply for permits when he made improvements to various buildings on the property. He says he thought the pumpkin patch qualified for an agriculture exemption.

He has since learned that isn't the case – and he learned it the hard way.

One day in June, Kirtlan got a phone call from an investigator who said county authorities would be arriving the next day with an inspection warrant.

"I said, 'You're joking with me, right?' " Kirtlan recalled telling the voice on the other end.

No one was laughing a day later when all kinds of official-looking folks arrived – some of them armed.

"We had a Gestapo raid of the District Attorney's Office," Kirtlan said.

Kirtlan recently hired a land use attorney, Diane Kindermann, who happened to be visiting the pumpkin patch with her 4-year-old twin daughters.

"They have been operating for a long time in the same fashion they are operating now," Kindermann said. "Only in the last year or two has the county taken notice."

The attorney said the Kirtlans must address certain paperwork issues, "but none of them are anything that would cause injury to anybody."

The farm family is also in the process of hiring a criminal attorney to deal with misdemeanor charges tied to the pumpkin patch dispute.

"I feel like a common criminal. I've never even had a speeding ticket," Kirtlan said. "My wife has already had a couple of anxiety attacks over this thing."

Since word of his troubles spread, Kirtlan has been buoyed by the show of support. Many visitors are flabbergasted.

"I think it's pretty ridiculous," said Jeanette Jonson, 65, who was at the pumpkin patch Wednesday. "It's been here 25 years and I've been bringing my kids and grandkids."

The DA's office said this week that the farm had made improvements to the property without getting the proper building permits. Failing to do that is a violation of "various rules and regulations to ensure the business they are running with children and families coming onto the property is safe," said Jonathan Raven, Yolo County's assistant chief deputy district attorney.

He added that no one wants to shut down the popular Halloween tradition and that "for some reason the Kirtlans have resisted getting the permits."

Kindermann said she is confident the matter can be resolved so that Silver Bend can remain in operation for years to come.

Kirtlan says his kind of "agri-tourism" is a creative solution to bolster the traditional farm operation, keep his five grown kids rooted in the farm lifestyle and stave off economic pressures to sell the property to developers.

He figures his 1,000 acres are worth about $20,000 an acre, or $20 million, and much more if the land is rezoned for development.

Asked why he doesn't simply sell and have the last laugh, Kirtlan said that after the raid, "I was ready to do it and my kids said to me, 'Dad, you've got to fight. This is our heritage and legacy, too."

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• Call The Bee's Blair Anthony Robertson, (916) 321-1099.