SANTA BARBARA COUNTY, Calif.
15, the board voted 4-1 in concept, with Chair Joan Hartmann opposed, to remove buildings for the “drying, curing and trimming” of cannabis from the acreage caps for “grows” in the Carpinteria Valley and North County.
Citing “very few existing or proposed processing facilities in the county,” the County Executive Officer told the board this month that the county faces “a substantial loss of tax revenue” because locally-grown marijuana is being trucked elsewhere for processing.
The amendments now on the table, county officials said, would result in more processing buildings here, including stand-alone buildings on properties where no cannabis is under cultivation.
“The sooner we do this, the better,” Supervisor Steve Lavagnino, who represents the Santa Maria Valley, said at a Nov.
A second reading and final board vote on the ordinance amendments has been set for March 1.
“The City of Carpinteria wishes to go on record as being strongly opposed to the contemplated change,” Nick Bobroff, principal planner, wrote to the board this month.
Hartmann, who voted against the proposed ordinance amendments this month, represents the wine country west of Buellton, where conflicts over pesticide drift, the aesthetics of cannabis hoop houses and the stink of pot in city neighborhoods and vintners’ tasting rooms have created bitter conflicts in recent years.
During the past year, the office found, many growers dropped their plans for new processing buildings in the race to get their cultivation permits approved before the acreage caps were reached.
“The legal industry is really struggling to survive,” Farrar, a past president of CARP Growers, wrote to the board in support of the ordinance amendments.
Glass House Farms operates as G & K Farms, eight greenhouses at 3561 Foothill Road; and Mission Health Associates, three greenhouses at 5601 Casitas Pass Road.
Like many other Carpinteria growers, Farrar is currently processing cannabis in an old packing house , virtually a shed that was built decades ago for the cut flower industry.
Now, Farrar is proposing to build a state-of-the-art 25,000 square-foot processing building at 3561 Foothill that can handle all of his cannabis.
Farrar said that members of CARP Growers support the cannabis ordinance amendments because their processing is “shoehorned” into old packing houses and they need more space.
County records show that Farrar’s properties at 5601 Casitas Pass and 3561 Foothill are first and second for the most cannabis odor complaints filed by residents of the valley since 2015, with 285 and 252 complaints, respectively.
In a 2021 agreement with the Santa Barbara Coalition for Responsible Cannabis, all CARP Growers members, including Farrar, pledged to install “best available odor control technology” at their greenhouses and processing buildings.
As for his greenhouses, Farrar said he plans to install carbon scrubbers in them, too.
The smell has caused her to suffer “regular nausea and headaches” as the odor is borne uphill into her neighborhood on the prevailing winds, Trigueiro said.
“We continue to experience the negative impacts of obnoxious cannabis odor infiltrating our property, often forcing us to keep our windows shut, even during heat waves,” Alexander and Patricia Globa of Carpinteria wrote to the board this month, expressing their opposition to increasing the cannabis caps.
31, 2022 deadline for 15 “legal, non-conforming” growers in the North County to get a county business license, if they want to be included in the cap.
One grower, Ted Fox of PRO Farms and Heirloom Valley, a 44-acre “grow” at 6495 Santa Rosa Road, told the board he was having to upgrade old structures built by previous owners without permits; replace old septic tanks and rebuild fences to the proper height.
Members of the Coalition for Responsible Cannabis and other citizens’ groups have asked why they, too, weren’t surveyed or invited to meetings with the CEO’s office to discuss how the ordinance should be changed.
Growers without a county business license by that date would have to shut down their operations; but if they obtained the license by Dec.
Melinda Burns is an investigative journalist with 40 years of experience covering immigration, water, science and the environment.