POINT CLEAR, Alabama—The owners of Dorgan’s Inn, the five-acre Point Clear property of spacious grounds, bay front home and cottages, which was seen and identified by name weekly on the first two seasons of the hit reality show “Sweet Home Alabama,” have appealed a ruling by the county planning department, holding they are engaged in a commercial enterprise in a residential area and must end those business practices.

The appeal will be heard by the local Baldwin County Board of Adjustment on Monday, Jan. 9, at 4 p.m. in the auditorium of the Baldwin County Central Annex in Robertsdale.

In September, the Point Clear Property Owners Association and local resident Albert Key filed complaints with the county planning department, alleging that William and Patricia Dorgan were violating county zoning laws by operating a business on property zoned residential. They pointed to frequent weddings and other events held there for a fee, the use of a permanent adjacent parking lot for about 70 vehicles and occasional overflow parking in vacant lots along Scenic Highway 98, attendance by several hundred people, the ferrying of people by golf carts and other vehicles from lots to the main property, loud music, and advertisements promoting the site as a wedding and event destination, as evidence that Dorgan’s Inn was an ongoing business and not a residence that occasionally hosted weddings.

In response to those complaints, Planning Director Vince Jackson issued a determination on Nov. 18, stating that the Dorgans were in violation of zoning law and had to discontinue within a month what he characterized as business activities related to a “wedding/event center.”

Last Friday, the Dorgans’ attorney, Chad Marchand, filed an appeal to that determination.

“In the recent past, the Dorgan property has become known as a great place to host weddings due to its location and size, and has been used for that purpose on some occasions,” Marchand stated in his Dec. 16 filing with the county. “A small group of Point Clear residents, however, began to complain about this use prompting an investigation” by the county planning department.

In an earlier statement, Marchand compared the complaining residents and situation at Dorgan’s Inn to a long-standing noise ordinance dispute in Fairhope in which a few vocal residents have complained about loud music from a business on Fly Creek. One difference in that comparison is that no one disputes that the Fairhope business is conducting a commercial enterprise or contends that it is doing so on residentially zoned property.

The Dorgan’s Inn property is not located within Fairhope city limits and is not subject to the city’s noise ordinance.

The Dorgans’ appeal to the zoning board next month will be their second appearance before the administrative agency within a year. In August, the board ruled against their request to obtain bed-and-breakfast status for Dorgan’s Inn.

An overflow audience crowded the small meeting room for that August hearing, with the majority of speakers objecting to the Dorgans’ request. Several also complained about what they said was a business that had grown in size and frequency in the past few years.

At the August hearing, Jackson supported the Dorgans’ request.

Pursuant to a new procedure adopted by the county this year, the Dorgans requested to have the board reconsider its bed-and-breakfast ruling but withdrew the request shortly before the board was to meet. Marchand further argues in his filing last week that Jackson’s “determination fails to provide any factors upon which a third-party could rely to determine whether such a use rises to the level of commercial activity.” He also contends that Jackson inappropriately labeled the Dorgan’s Inn as a “wedding/event center” and “created a ‘new use’” not found in the zoning laws, resulting in a determination that “amounts to an improper limitation to the ability to use one’s personal property freely and is due to be overturned.”

After Jackson issued his determination, and not long before the end of the month-long period when all wedding and event activities were to be discontinued at the Point Clear location, another event was held this month at Dorgan’s Inn.

“The Dorgans’ property has been zoned (residential) for some time,” Josh Myrick, an attorney for Key, said Wednesday. “The (residential) portions of the (Zoning) Ordinance clearly define the uses permitted in those districts. Mr. Dorgan’s use of the property to host large events for a fee is not a ‘permitted use’ in (these residential) districts. As Mr. Jackson notes in his determination letter, this use is not even ‘analogous to’ a permitted use.”

Following on the success of the first two seasons of Country Music Television’s hit show, “Sweet Home Alabama” began filming for a third season last month at about the same time of the county’s ruling that Dorgan’s Inn business operations had to end within an month.

A new home base of operations for the CMT film crew was observed starting in mid-November at a bay front home less a mile north of Dorgan’s Inn on Scenic Highway 98. And the finale was filmed there this past Saturday night, according to several first-hand accounts and observations