The fate of several thousand Sonoma County marijuana growers hangs in the balance this year, their businesses caught between an emergent industry sanctioned by state voters at the ballot box in 2016 and a new local law that bans commercial cultivation in large swaths outside city limits.
The conflict has shaken pot growers, who face a stark choice: move out of the affected residential zones under county control or hunker down in place and hope authorities don’t catch up with them.
The legal shift — approved last year by the Board of Supervisors and favored by many rural residents but strongly opposed by cannabis growers — could confound the county’s attempts to bring the once-outlaw industry into compliance.
At stake are thousands of jobs, millions of dollars in tax revenue and the success of regulations meant to ensure public safety, safeguard the environment and shield rural neighborhoods that county officials say aren’t suited to pot cultivation for profit.
Advocates say the growers, many of them small “mom and pop” operators who are not wealthy, have few options, with the escalating cost of local land a barrier to relocation.
“There’s no path forward for them,” said Erin Carlstrom, a Santa Rosa attorney and former city councilwoman whose firm represents about 50 cultivators. “This is causing a lot of anxiety.”
County code enforcement efforts have already begun enforcement against medical pot cultivators whose operations do not conform with the zoning law that took effect just a month ago, following its adoption by the Board of Supervisors in December.
“They know, they know,” said Tennis Wick, the county planning director whose department handles code enforcement. “We are pursuing complaints now.”
The initial enforcement action stems from complaints against 15 to 20 commercial growing operations in single-family homes, which are illegal throughout the county’s jurisdiction and “tend to have the greatest community impact,” Wick said.
Wick declined to elaborate on the county’s strategy, but said enforcement will include unauthorized outdoor pot gardens after planting season arrives.
“We don’t want to tell the bad guys when we’re coming,” he said.
The new zoning rules amounted to a homegrown prohibition for an estimated 3,000 growers in rural neighborhoods surrounding the county’s nine cities, who were effectively outlawed under the county’s Medical Cannabis Land Use Ordinance on Jan. 19.
Some of those growers may be able to operate until the end of the year, but the zoning law limits cultivation to the county’s agricultural, industrial and resources zones, excluding the 31,383 land parcels in the county’s two rural residential zones.
The law took shape through heavy input from the industry, but the Board of Supervisors sided with many rural residents who have decried the impact of pot operations on their neighborhoods.
Bennett Valley homeowners Nancy and Brantly Richardson said they have seen at least three homes in their subdivision converted to pot growing operations behind tall fences. Their neighborhood was a magnet for indoor marijuana cultivation, they said, with homes on an acre or less with detached garages or outbuildings.
The result was “heartbreaking,” said Nancy Richardson.
Cannabis tax workshop
Sonoma County officials will discuss the county’s proposed cannabis business tax and Santa Rosa officials will report on the development of a city tax at a community workshop from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday at the Glaser Center, 547 Mendocino Ave., Santa Rosa.
The county tax is set for a vote in a special election March 7, while Santa Rosa is preparing a tax measure that will be voted on in June.
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