The County of Santa Barbara took in $1.7 million in tax revenue from cannabis operations during the first quarter of the 2025-26 fiscal year, an increase from the same period last year, staff said on Tuesday.

The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors heard an update on cannabis operations and revenue during its meeting in Santa Maria, where county staff discussed how much the county collected in taxes, the status of cannabis operations and odor abatement technology.

This year’s revenue shows a 31% jump compared with last year, according to Carmela Beck, the county’s cannabis program manager. Even though the current year is higher, it is still slightly lower than the first quarters from fiscal years 2022-23 and 2023-24.

Beck added that despite lowering the acreage cap for cannabis grows in the Carpinteria Valley to 134 acres, leftover space remains. The supervisors voted to lower the cap by 52 acres in August because of complaints from residents about the smell of cannabis farms.

Of those 134 acres, 131.52 acres are occupied. For all unincorporated areas of the county, 1,018.32 of 1,417 acres are used by cannabis operations.

Beck also announced that of the six dispensaries permitted in unincorporated areas of the county, only three are currently open for business: the Farmacy cannabis dispensary chain, which operates shops in Isla Vista and Santa Ynez, and Dr. Greenthumb’s in Orcutt.

Of the three other locations, the Los Alamos location is under review by the Planning & Development Department and is expected to open by the end of 2027, and a dispensary in Eastern Goleta Valley is expected to open by the end of 2026.

The last location — on Santa Claus Lane in the Carpinteria Valley area — is without an operator after the two top candidates pulled their applications.

Brittany Odermann of the County Executive Office said the county is not required to immediately restart the application process and could focus on the five other locations for now.

The county has struggled to find operators for all of its dispensaries. Most operators first applied for permits in 2021; by June 2024, only two had opened retail storefronts. Dr. Greenthumb’s, the last of the operating dispensaries to open, opened in December 2024.

In a 5-0 vote last January, the Board of Supervisors required that cannabis farms install carbon filters by March 18. County staff said on Tuesday that only 10 cannabis operators have installed the filters, while 15 operators in the Carpinteria Valley and three in other unincorporated areas have not.

Eleven of the 18 operators did submit extension requests before the county’s extension deadline of Dec. 18, 2025. Those are being reviewed by County Planning & Development staff.

Carbon filters — commonly known as carbon scrubbers — “scrub” the smell of cannabis out of the air, a departure from the county’s previously preferred technology, the vapor-phase systems. Those systems released a laundromat-like odor into the air to help mask the smell of cannabis.

Tests from 2021 showed that scrubbers reduced the smell of cannabis by 84%. They are also expensive, to the tune of roughly $20,000 each.

Staff findings on those requested extensions are scheduled to be presented to the Board of Supervisors during its March 3 meeting.