Thousands of pot plants destroyed since August at illegal Santa Barbara County cannabis grows
Santa Barbara County has been cracking down hard on illegal cannabis grows where the operators are not following local rules or getting proper permits.
It’s weeding out the suspected bad operators and letting the good operators work within the system that allows for medicinal and recreational marijuana to be grown and sold in California along with related cannabis businesses.
Santa Barbara County Supervisor Das Williams is closely watching the enforcement actions in the Carpinteria Valley, located in his district.
Last week a bust there was significant and connected to an operation in Lompoc.
Recently there was a raid in San Luis Obispo county with marijuana from a Los Alamos grower that is under investigation.
“The fact is, if you can’t comply with county rules I think what this shows is, you will be raided.” said Williams.
He says, since August, “we have had 30 marijuana raids. That is far more than what was taking place in earlier years.”
County residents approved a cannabis tax and from that some funding has been set aside specifically for enforcement. Santa Barbara County has a cannabis compliance team with Sheriff’s personnel and staff from several county offices related to permits and legal conformance.
Williams says operators who are not filling out their forms correctly or provide false information could be busted and lose everything from their plants to their investments. Since last summer, “the county Sheriff’s department has seized over 775,000 plants and that’s tens of thousands of pounds of product,” said Williams.
He also says some of the operations shut down have also been contributors to the odor problem reported by numerous residents in and around Carpinteria for about two years.
One resident said efforts to mask the odor recently with a “cheap perfume” smell was not working. He said it was like “putting Lysol on dog waste that’s been tossed on your property.”
Another resident told the county some cultivators are taking advantage of the system and if they are not trying to pursue a legal operation they need to be shut down.
An estimated 2200 applications have come from Santa Barbara County — the highest in California.
Other deadlines for appropriate paperwork with the State of California will be coming due in the next two weeks that could also affect growers in the area.
Some of the Carpinteria Valley growers have been targeted by crime, and their land has been beefed up with security cameras, new fencing and multiple systems to guard their finances.
