## Facts

- Snake River Brewing Company built and operated a restaurant and micro-brewery in Jackson under a 1993 building permit.
- In 1993, the Town’s ordinances allowed three ways to satisfy off-street parking requirements: on-site parking, off-site parking, or a fee in lieu of parking.
- Snake River initially used a combination of on-site parking and off-site leased parking, and the Town approved that arrangement.
- Snake River invested about $1,768,000 in the initial project.
- In 1995, the Town amended its zoning ordinances so the fee-in-lieu option was no longer authorized for Snake River’s location.
- In 1996, the Town approved an expansion, and Snake River invested about $1,000,000 more.
- In 1998, the off-site lease became cost-prohibitive, and Snake River sought to switch to the fee-in-lieu option.
- The Town asserted Snake River had “abandoned” the fee-in-lieu option by not selecting it earlier and had also abandoned off-site parking by not renewing the lease for a twelve-month period.
- The Town filed a declaratory judgment action; the district court granted summary judgment to the Town, and Snake River appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether Snake River had a vested right, as part of a protected nonconforming use, to satisfy parking requirements by paying a fee in lieu of providing parking.
2. If such a right existed, whether Snake River abandoned it.
3. Whether applying the Town’s current parking regulations to bar the fee-in-lieu option was a reasonable exercise of municipal police power.

## Decision

- The Wyoming Supreme Court reversed the district court’s summary judgment for the Town.
- The court held Snake River had a vested right, as part of its nonconforming use, to use the fee-in-lieu parking option recognized when the use was lawfully established.
- The court held Snake River did not abandon that right.
- The court concluded the Town could not reasonably apply later ordinances to retroactively extinguish the vested parking-compliance option for this property.
- The court indicated summary judgment should have been entered for Snake River.

## Legal Principles

- A lawful land use may become a protected nonconforming use after ordinance changes; the municipality generally may not eliminate the vested incidents of that use absent a recognized basis such as abandonment.
- Vested rights may extend beyond the specific initial configuration to include regulatory alternatives that were authorized methods of compliance when the use was permitted and substantially relied upon.
- Abandonment requires both intent to abandon and conduct that clearly manifests renunciation; mere nonuse or failure to initially select one authorized compliance option is insufficient.
- Municipal police power over zoning and parking is broad, but regulations must be reasonable as applied and may not retroactively extinguish vested, nonconforming rights without lawful justification.

## Conclusion

The court held that Snake River’s substantial reliance on the Town’s 1993 approvals created a vested, nonconforming right to satisfy parking requirements through any of the then-authorized methods, including a fee in lieu of parking, and that Snake River neither intended nor acted to abandon that right; the Town’s contrary application of later ordinances was unreasonable, so summary judgment for the Town was reversed.


Snake River Brewing Co. v. Town of Jackson, 39 P.3d 397 (Wyo. 2002)