After Santa Barbara County supervisors decided to allow unlimited marijuana grow licenses, companies from all over California saw an opportunity.
The hills of Santa Barbara County’s famed wine region have become the unlikely capital of California’s legal pot market. Now, rolling vineyards and country estates find themselves next to sprawling rows of white plastic hoop houses.
Now row after row of white plastic hoop houses sprawl amid rolling vineyards and country estates, and coastal bungalows and schools carry the whiff of backcountry Humboldt. Marijuana growing in a steel-frame greenhouse at Brand Farms in Carpinteria at the southern end of Santa Barbara County. Left, marijuana growing in a steel-frame greenhouse at Brand Farms in Carpinteria at the southern end of Santa Barbara County. The industry says it provides well-paid jobs. Right, a worker trims and sorts marijuana at Brand Farms. Das Williams
Farms in Santa Barbara County hold 35% of all cultivation licenses issued in California this year, despite the county having only 1.8% of the state’s land. Humboldt County, the historic center of the marijuana universe, has 22%, while illegal grows there continue to dominate the larger black market. He envisions the county fostering an industry that obeys the law, pays its taxes and solves problems affecting its neighbors. He conceded that the board’s actions helped create a “Wild West situation that we’re just cleaning up now.”At the south end of the county in Carpinteria, the skunky odor of marijuana pours out the open vents of steel-frame greenhouses that the cut flower industry used for decades. Residents said the irritant makes eyes water and chests tighten.
Dennis Bozanich, Deputy County Executive Officer in Santa Barbara County inspects marijuana growing in a steel-frame greenhouse. “The pesticide levels set for cannabis are extremely low,” said Rick Shade, who manages 600 acres of avocado trees in the Carpinteria Valley. Graham Farrar, a Carpinteria Valley grower and president of the Carp Growers cannabis coalition, said he and his members would continue to look for a solution.
The growers did not have to provide any evidence that they owned or leased the property at the time, much less that they were cultivating cannabis there.When the state announced in the fall of 2017 that it was going to issue the first temporary cultivation licenses, the county turned to the registry to determine eligibility. Those on the list just had to sign an affidavit under penalty of perjury that they were growing medical marijuana on their site prior to Jan. 19, 2016.
When Santa Barbara County supervisors decided to allow unlimited licenses, moneyed interests from all over the state saw an opportunityThe state licensing authority was suddenly deluged with applications for sites in Santa Barbara County — many filed by companies from Northern California and Los Angeles. All claimed they had been growing in Santa Barbara since January 2016.
Dennis Bozanich, the deputy county executive officer in charge of developing cannabis regulations, said the sheriff has eradicated about 20 licensed farms because the operators lied on the affidavits about having grown since Jan. 19, 2016, and that investigations into others are ongoing. At board meetings, Bozanich, Williams or Lavagnino floated concepts they had already discussed with growers — like the registry — and growers lined up to support them during the public comments. While there were numerous public hearings, few residents attended most of them and many were later caught unaware by the scope of the cultivation, failing to anticipate the consequences of the incremental measures being passed.
Erin Weber, a cannabis consultant with California Strategies, a Sacramento-based lobbying firm, drafted a letter last year for Williams to send to the Coastal Commission, urging it to certify the county’s cannabis regulations in the coastal zone. Santa Barbara County has allowed what industry trackers say are the biggest marijuana grows in the world.The move would have put half the cost of county staff time — as much as $14,000 for a single appeal — on the grower and half on the person making the appeal.
Williams said the contributions and his friendships did not influence his decisions. “I have friends on the other side of this, too. This is a small community.”
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