(NVR) - Markham Vineyards ended up being an easy case for the Napa County Planning Commission the second time around.

The commission unanimously agreed on Wednesday that the winery located along Highway 29 north of St. Helena can increase production from 300,000 gallons annually to 429,000 gallons annually. Visitation limits will remain the same.

“I believe this is a simple request,” Planning Commissioner Michael Basayne said.

But it didn’t look so simple on May 20. The commission held a hearing that day, then postponed a decision amid unexpected complications.

Visitation proved to be the sticky issue, even though Markham Vineyards didn’t ask for a higher visitation limit. County planning staff and the winery disagreed over how many visitors the winery is already allowed to have. A staff report said that, is the case with many older wineries, the extent of visitation and marketing entitlements is “somewhat vague.”

Markham Vineyards officials said they had documents showing that visitation before 1990 was 22,312 annually. In addition, winery officials said the winery has historically held 81 marketing events annually with a total of no more than 7,000 people attending.

County planning staff said May 20 the visitation limit is 18,200 annually. It based this figure on the winery’s technical studies for water and wastewater availability.