CASTRO VALLEY SUPPORTS NOW-SIGNLESS BURGER JOINT : CASTRO VALLEY  (AP) — Residents of a San Francisco Bay area suburb are speaking up to support a 1950's-style sign that county planners ordered removed from a new hamburger restaurant.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported Monday that the owners of Boulevard Burger complied with the order last week because the planners said a portion of the three-foot-tall sign improperly reached above the restaurant's roofline.

Steve Ontiveros owns a business up the street from the burger joint. He says the sign enlivened Castro Valley Boulevard during the few weeks it was up and that Alameda County officials should have consulted local residents before ordering its removal.

The Chronicle says signage controversies are a recurring theme in Castro Valley, population 61,000. In 1997, the county was forced to take down a $106,000 welcome sculpture it had paid an artist to install at the community's entrance.

FOOD NETWORK STAR WANTS TO OPEN WINE TASTING ROOM:  SANTA ROSA (AP) — Celebrity restaurateur Guy Fieri is hoping to open a wine tasting room on the site of a five-acre Sonoma County vineyard he bought last year.

The Press Democrat of Santa Rosa reports that the star of the Food Network series "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" has submitted plans for the project, which the county has to review for its potential impact on local traffic and noise.

Fieri's application states that in addition to the tasting room and a commercial kitchen, the Santa Rosa property would host up to 14 large events a year and be built in an Italian style.

Fieri tells the newspaper that he sold the vineyard's pinot noir grapes to two area winemakers last year, but hopes to create a family label that he would name after his sons.

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