The Coalition for Accountable Hashish — a Santa Barbara County–primarily based nonprofit that sprouted in 2017 as a solution to encourage accountable and neighbor-friendly hashish companies on the Central Coast — filed a lawsuit Thursday towards a number of cultivators, together with Ceres Farms, Valley Crest Farms, and the Van Wingerden Household Belief, alleging that the growers are sustaining a pungent public nuisance with their subpar odor abatement.
The lawsuit was filed by legal professional Robert Curtis of Foley, Bezek, Behle & Curtis, who beforehand led a nuisance lawsuit that led to a settlement leading to Carpinteria’s first everlasting “carbon scrubber” filtration system. Curtis is representing the Coalition for Accountable Hashish and three particular person plaintiffs within the lawsuit: Chonnie Bliss Jacobson and the house owners of the Rose Story Farm, Dr. William Hahn and Dani Dall’Armi.
The principle purpose of the lawsuit, in keeping with a press release launched by the Coalition for Accountable Hashish, is to not get financial compensation however as an alternative to push these particular cultivators to make use of carbon scrubbers, a “confirmed and efficient odor abatement expertise,” which the group says is preferable to the chemical masking brokers which have “plagued residents of the realm” for years.
“These growers usually are not the ‘good neighbors’ they declare to be,” Curtis stated. “They proceed to revenue from their cannabis-growing operations on the expense of their neighbors, who now not can take pleasure in their houses and neighborhoods due to the horrible and chronic odor. Hashish continues to be an issue for the individuals of Carpinteria, and also you don’t want a courtroom to show it: All it’s important to do is step exterior.”
Within the lawsuit, the plaintiffs argue that the foul odor from the Carpinteria-based cultivators has affected their properties close by, lowered property values, and compelled them to endure an “ever-present noxious odor of their houses, neighborhood, and on roads” from the cultivation and processing of hashish.
The group additionally made it clear that they aren’t anti-cannabis, however as an alternative are advocating for, because the identify suggests, accountable practices for hashish cultivators within the county, one thing they argue ought to have been baked into the county’s ordinance when it was first launched in 2016.
Final yr, it appeared as if the county was making progress towards getting growers in keeping with the latest expertise. In December 2022, it was all however agreed that the growers would all convert to carbon scrubbers. However a number of of the growers have nonetheless not made the swap, the lawsuit alleges, forcing the group to take issues into their very own palms and into the courtroom.
“We discover it unlucky that but once more, our small nonprofit must do the work of the County — merely modify the ordinance, and let’s transfer ahead,” stated Lionel Neff, director of the Coalition for Accountable Hashish. “We took the money and time to check carbon scrubbers and despatched the outcomes to the Board of Supervisors, but nonetheless nothing has occurred.”
Litigation was meant to be a final resort, however with the growers persevering with to make use of chemical masking brokers whereas others have moved towards the newer applied sciences, and the county ordinance nonetheless unchanged, the group felt like a lawsuit was the one solution to sort out the problem of the persistent odor on Casitas Move Highway.
“We’ve been at this now, sadly, for years,” stated Coalition for Accountable Hashish boardmember Jules Nau. “However it has given us an unimaginable perspective, and we now know what works and what doesn’t. Carbon scrubbers work. Spraying chemical substances within the air shouldn’t be a long-term resolution. It’s time for the county to repair this downside, but when they will’t, the Coalition will shield these of us who reside with this nuisance by lawsuits like this.”
Representatives for Ceres Farms, Valley Crest Farms, and the Van Wingerden Household Belief couldn’t be reached for remark earlier than publication.
