A proposal to change the operating hours of a Carpinteria cannabis facility failed to gain the support of the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission on Wednesday after backlash from neighborhood residents.

The Planning Commission met in Santa Barbara, where it heard an appeal to a proposal to change the operating hours at Valley Crest Farms, located at 5980 Casitas Pass Road.

The owners of the site, which grows and processes cannabis, applied to change its hours from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. to a 24-hour operation. The change would have allowed the site to operate in three shifts of 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. and 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.

County staff reviewed the project and found it did not violate any county ordinances. They also recommended that the commission approve it.

Residents who live near the farm criticized the proposal, saying that it did not fit the neighborhood.

Tim Bliss, who filed the appeal to the change, told the commission that his family has been farming in the Carpinteria Valley for more than 100 years, and many of them still live on the property.

Bliss said he was not opposed to the cannabis industry and is supportive of it overall, but opposed the expansion of Valley Crest. He claimed that a 24-hour processing plant did not fit the neighborhood, which is a mixture of rural agriculture and residential homes.

“We need to sleep at night, and we need to go to work in the morning, just like any other residential area,” Bliss said. “And nobody in our eastern Carpinteria Valley, whether it’s an ag transfer station, an ag warehouse, flower growers, avocado growers, cannabis growers, to this day operates after dark.”

Bliss continued by claiming that Valley Crest has a history of violations because of its use of lights, noise and odor. Furthermore, he pointed out that the farm was one of two sites named in a class-action lawsuit in March.

Benjamin Warner, a representative for Valley Crest, said a change to the site’s hours would allow the facility to process its product faster and help deal with its backlog. He said the application would not change the amount of cannabis the facility is processing but would let the farm offer overtime if it needs to catch up.

Warner also said the shifts would not be a daily change and would be done only when needed.

“We are not proposing that we’d operate 24/7 365 days out of the year, rather that we require the authorization to do so to appropriately respond on a periodic basis,” Warner told the commission.

During public comment, most speakers criticized the project and the proposed change.

Anthony Brown, who says his family has lived in Carpinteria for five generations, said the project shows that Valley Crest does not care about the neighborhood.

He also accused Valley Crest of ignoring the county’s odor ordinance and not installing carbon scrubbers to help negate the smell from the facility. The Board of Supervisors revised its ordinance to require carbon scrubbers earlier this year.

“I want to thank you, the county, for trying to improve a very flawed ordinance, but allowing an operation to run 24/7 is not going in the right direction. This 24/7 request is incompatible land use for our neighborhood,” Brown said.

During deliberations of the commission, the members seemed unsure of the need for a 24-hour operation. Commissioner C. Michael Cooney of the First District recused himself from the discussion because of previous relationships with some of the appellants.

One of the sticking points for the commission was a line about the number of employees allowed during a shift.

Some of the commissioners believed the proposal could allow up to 70 employees at one time. However, Warner said the facility would have only about 15 people during a shift, and the 70 maximum is the total number allowed on the property in one day over three shifts.

Commissioner Roy Reed of the Fourth District said he sympathizes with neighbors who have lived in the area for generations and did not sign up to live near cannabis operations. However, said he also believes businesses should be allowed to decide how to use their property.

Reed added that he did not feel comfortable approving the item, saying the proposed change was too different than what was being discussed during the meeting.

Instead, Reed proposed a continuance to allow the farm to modify its application and return for approval.

Commissioner John Parke of the Third District and Vincent Martinez of the Fourth District opposed the proposal and said they would not support the hourly change.

Commissioner Laura Bridley also opposed an overnight operation and said she did not believe that a continuance would help since they did not have Cooney to break a tie.

The commission moved to tell county staff to put together findings to deny the application and continue the topic until Sept. 10 in Santa Barbara. The commission approved the continuance in a 4-0 vote.