This tony California town still think legal cannabis stinks and is going to court to stop it.
In 2018, California was fully legal, but one posh town made a big stink about the odor of cannabis being grown nearby. The Fresh Toast covered it then, and it seems the fight continues on. Th small seaside town of Carpinteria is in Santa Barbara County in California. The pricey enclave of old town Carpinteria is the third most expensive neighborhood in the United States per square foot at $4,129 per square foot. With a population of 12,950 is it a a popular surf destination with a slogan of “World’s Safest Beach”. But this California town still thinks cannabis stinks. And some residents want to stop it.
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Old Carpinteria is a town in a bigger country. The town has a city council, but the farms outside the city limits are rest in the country. A group of city residents filed a class-action lawsuit in September against two cannabis farms in the county they allege are destroying property values. Weed farming has become a massive industry in Santa Barbara. Last statistics show marijuana farms grown $260 million, the second largest crop only behind strawberries at $811 million. But other agriculture farms are unhappy and say they are harming thier crops of roses, avocados and more.
The terpenes in the plant provide the smell and some of the essential therapeutic benefits. Currently, most legal weed is grown in expansive greenhouses. The high cost of indoor grow has not only shown up at the shelves of dispensaries, but also in weak profits for growers. Being in a greenhouse produces year round crops, but can be a smaller footprint.
Santa Barbara Coalition for Responsible Cannabis coalition has spent over a million dollars fighting weed farms in the county. Two years ago, after much legal wrangling, they signed a peace treaty with a leading growers’ organization in the Carpinteria Valley. But they say they haven’t followed the deal which included installing the latest tech to “clean the smell”.
Residents want them to adopt state-of-the-art clean-air technology in their open-vented greenhouses. Carbon filters called “scrubbers” have been shown to be effective in preventing the smell of cannabis from wafting out of the roof vents and into neighborhoods. Only four of 20 active marijuana farms in the valley are fully equipped with them, county records show.
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Santa Barbara County, which oversees regulation, has been very slow in addressing the issue via mandates. There are a variety of crops and they are concerned about more regulations on farming in general. Rather, than encourage both sides to be good neighbors. Five years into it, it seems patience and good neighbor spirit is wearing them.
