This summer, cannabis growers will likely hit the county’s 186-acre cap on zoning permits in the Carpinteria Valley, now the largest greenhouse pot-producing region in California.
It’s a milestone that will trigger two critical deadlines: one of perhaps six months, officials say, for “legal-nonconforming” operators without permit approvals to stop growing cannabis altogether; and another, of perhaps a year, for growers with approvals to obtain a county business license or lose their place under the cap.
That’s good news for the citizen groups that have sought to rein in the lucrative and stinky industry that has taken over the valley’s old flower greenhouses since 2015.
But the milestone that many residents yearn for is much more elusive — an end to the “skunky” smell of pot that wafts into homes and neighborhoods and travels along with drivers on local roads, a smell that many say brings on headaches, nausea, and breathing problems.
Carpinterians have filed 2,340 odor complaints with the county since mid-2018, including some this year, but county officials have said all along they can’t address them until all the growers have obtained their zoning permits, the next step after a formal approval.
To date, the county has issued permits for only 68 acres of cannabis. And even with all 186 acres permitted, officials say, it will be hard to pinpoint which operator is to blame for an odor because so many greenhouses are clustered closely together.
In the meantime, the county Board of Supervisors continues to churn out a steady stream of approvals for growers, predictably overriding all objections in fulfilling the primary mission it first set out in the cannabis ordinance of 2018: to “develop a robust and economically viable legal cannabis industry.” A blistering county Grand Jury report would later find that the board “simply opened the floodgates,” altering the quality of life in this county “perhaps forever.”
“We ended up with a problem that couldn’t be enforced, even if everybody could agree there was an intolerable odor coming through the air,” county Planning Commission Chair Mike Cooney, who represents the Carpinteria Valley, observed this month. “I’d say we’re honing in on an odor solution we’re determined to implement. But the process is not moving as quickly as we’d like.
“It’s a lot like fighting the Russian Army. You can take a lot of them down, but there are always more coming.”
Implementing Carbon Scrubbers for Odor Control
According to the National Cannabis Industry Association, carbon filtration is “the most commonly used and recommended control technology” for reducing odors in cannabis facilities. Such filters have been routinely used for years in cannabis processing buildings where marijuana plants are dried, cured and trimmed, the smelliest stage of cannabis production.
In late 2020, for the first time, Santa Barbara County required filters called carbon “scrubbers” to be installed within a greenhouse cannabis operation in the Carpinteria Valley. The scrubbers have been shown to dramatically reduce the smell of pot before it can escape through the vents on the greenhouse roofs.
As of today, though, only three cannabis greenhouse operations covering 23 acres of cultivation in the valley are equipped with carbon scrubbers. They are Ever-Bloom, at 4701 Foothill Road, a flashpoint in the cannabis industry debate because of its location close to Carpinteria High School; Roadside, a new operation at 3684 Via Real; and CVW Organic Farms, at 1400 Cravens Lane, the first to implement the technology. All three are owned by members of the Van Wingerden family, which rose to prominence in the cut flower industry in the valley in the 1970s and 80s.
In addition, the county has required scrubbers to be installed within 12 months at four other cannabis grows, totaling 21 acres: Maximum Nursery at 4555 Foothill, a Van Wingerden operation next to Ever-Bloom; a Brand family operation at 4532 Foothill close to the high school; Cresco California at 3861 Foothill, operated by Cresco Labs, a Chicago-based corporation; and Creekside Blooms, a Van Wingerden operation at 3508 Via Real.
“We are advising applicants that scrubbers have become the accepted industry practice as a lot of growers have been starting to implement them,” said Lisa Plowman, director of county Planning & Development.
Scrubbers conform with an August 2021 agreement between CARP Growers, an industry group that includes most of the valley’s cannabis greenhouse owners, and the Santa Barbara Coalition for Responsible Cannabis, a countywide citizens’ group, Plowman said. The growers pledged to use the “best available control technology” to prevent the smell of pot from drifting beyond their property lines; and in return, the coalition agreed not to oppose their projects.
The CARP Growers agreement does not set deadlines for replacing misting systems with scrubbers and several member projects under review do not currently include them.
Most of the cannabis greenhouses in the valley are equipped with a first-generation odor control technology, originally developed for landfills, that releases a curtain of mist from perforated pipes around the outside perimeter of the greenhouses or on the roof ridge lines, to neutralize the smell of pot after it escapes into the air. Many residents have objected to smell of the mist, which they compare to that of laundromat detergent.
Plowman said the county plans to hire an odor control consultant in July to assess the odor-control systems at cannabis operations, using data from weather monitors and other technologies.
If the growers’ misting systems aren’t working, “They’re going to have to up their game,” Plowman said. “They’re going to have to change their system if it’s not effective.”
2 Recent Appeals Denied, Projects Approved
On May 24, the Board of Supervisors denied an appeal of the Ever-Bloom cannabis cultivation project in a 5-0 vote.
Appellants with Concerned Carpinterians argued the project was too large and too close to Carpinteria High School and the United Boys’ and Girls Clubs on Foothill Road.
Ann Louise Bardach, a representative of the group, noted that the majority of students at the high school were Hispanic.
“Would this be happening at Montecito Union School?” she asked, referring to the elementary school in the South Coast’s wealthiest community. “We all know the answer.”
The northeastern corner of Ever-Bloom’s property is only 360 feet from the Carpinteria High School property line. Under the approved project, nursery plants, which do not give off a strong odor, can be grown in a portion of that corner, outside the 600-foot buffer zone from the school.
In all, 101 carbon scrubbers have been installed throughout the operation, one of the largest in the valley, with 11 acres of cannabis under cultivation. At $20,000 per scrubber, that’s an investment of more than $2 million. The machines are running around the clock.
Ever-Bloom supporters told the board that the smell of pot in the neighborhood was dramatically reduced, compared to three years ago.
Supervisor Das Williams, who represents the valley, lives there, and has accepted past campaign donations from CARP Growers members, called the appeal “a train wreck.”
“I have seen no one work harder or pour more money into odor control technology in the valley than this family,” Williams said.
Together with Supervisor Steve Lavagnino, Williams played an outsized role in drafting the 2018 cannabis ordinance, which has allowed medicinal marijuana growers who were growing before 2016 to expand their operations under “legal non-conforming” status, so long as they applied for zoning permits.
In requiring scrubbers at Ever-Bloom, Williams said, the county was doing exactly what its critics have been asking for.
However, “it doesn’t seem to make anyone happier, at least those who are still in the fight.”
On June 1, the Planning Commission denied Cate School’s appeal of a Foothill Road cannabis project.
Cate School, a private high school at 1960 Cate Mesa Road, has filed three appeals of cannabis permits approved by the Planning Department, including a 5.5-acre farm at 4532 Foothill Road.
According to Charlotte Brownlee, an assistant Head of School who lives on campus with 56 other faculty members and 230 student boarders, Cate gets hit with the smell of pot every morning at 7 a.m.
The levels of “skunky” odors at Cate “vary in intensity, but they continue to be problematic,” she told the commission. “While we’ve been filing complaints for the last five years, we have yet to see any relief.”
Planning Commissioners voted 4-1 at the hearing to allow operations manager Francis Brand to grow nursery marijuana plants within the 750-foot buffer zone from the school as long as he builds a wall separating them from mature plants.
They also required him to equip the greenhouses with carbon scrubbers within 12 months.
Cate School has appealed the permit approvals of two Casitas Pass Road cannabis projects as well, and those appeals will be heard at the Planning Commission.
Melinda Burns is an investigative journalist with 40 years of experience covering immigration, water, science and the environment. As a community service, she offers her report to multiple publications in Santa Barbara County, at the same time, for free.