In a 5-0 vote on Wednesday, the county Planning Commission endorsed the most consequential changes to the county's cannabis ordinance to date, recommending that all indoor growers be required to install advanced carbon filters, a state-of-the-art clean air technology, in each of their greenhouses.
The "skunky" smell of pot, the commission said, must stop at the property line of these operations.
If the recommendation is adopted by the county Board of Supervisors on March 18, every greenhouse grower would have 12 months from that date — or until the date of state Coastal Commission approval, if it comes after that initial 12-months — to install the carbon filters, generally known as "scrubbers," or an equivalent clean-air technology. Growers experiencing supply chain problems or delays in power upgrades could apply for "hardship extensions."
All but one of the cannabis greenhouse operations in the county are clustered in the Carpinteria Valley just beyond the city limits of Carpinteria, a small and once-sleepy beach town. Of 27 greenhouse "grows" that are permitted there, 20 are currently under cultivation, and of these, only seven are equipped with scrubbers. The total acreage permitted for cannabis in the valley is 138 acres, or about 100 football fields worth. (There is one cannabis greenhouse operation on Dominion Road east of Orcutt.)
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