Plans for what’s being billed as the most airtight cannabis processing warehouse in the Carpinteria Valley have exposed a growing rift between the citizens groups that for years have pressed the county to rein in the fast-expanding, foul-smelling cannabis industry.
Activists took opposing sides this month as the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission approved zoning permits for a 25,400-square-foot warehouse next to five previously approved cannabis greenhouses at 3561 Foothill Road.
The operation, called G&K Farms, is co-owned by Graham Farrar, a founder of the CARP Growers group of cannabis operators with about 20 separate “grows” in the valley.
One hundred members of Concerned Carpinterians, a loose organization of about 300 residents, signed a petition urging the commission to vote no on the warehouse project. They have long complained that Farrar’s greenhouses on Foothill Road are sending waves of the “skunky” smell of marijuana into their homes day and night on the prevailing winds, causing them to suffer nausea, headaches and respiratory problems.
They say that anyone who drives by the operation can smell the stink.
“If G&K is considered a good neighbor, then God help us,” said Sara Trigueiro, a resident of La Mirada Drive above Foothill, where she has a sweeping view of what some are calling the “industrial complex” of cannabis greenhouses between Nidever and Casitas Pass roads.
“My grandmother, on hospice, complained constantly of the cannabis fumes,” Trigueiro told the commission at its June 9 hearing, fighting back tears. “That’s not right. … We should wait for operators to prove that they are good neighbors and are not causing nuisances before we allow them to expand existing operations.”
But in addition to Farrar and the county, Trigueiro took aim at Marc Chytilo, an attorney for the Santa Barbara Coalition for Responsible Cannabis, a nonprofit group of 200 residents from Carpinteria to the Cuyama Valley. The coalition has filed lawsuits and dozens of project appeals against cannabis growers.
Collaboration vs. Confrontation
In recent months, Chytilo has angered some members of Concerned Carpinterians by negotiating odor control agreements behind closed doors with cannabis operators, including, most recently, CARP Growers members, including Farrar.
To date, three such agreements have been incorporated during public hearings into the growers’ zoning permit applications for cannabis cultivation. The coalition has promised those growers that it will not sue them.
Trigueiro is not impressed: She asked the commissioners to describe any communications they had had with Chytilo about Farrar’s warehouse.
A group of concerned Carpinteria Valley residents asked the county Planning Commisson not to approve a cannabis processing warehouse for the area. The warehouse is for a farm operated by Graham Farrar, who is seen here in one of his Glass House Farms cannabis greenhouses in the Carpinteria Valley in 2019. (Giana Magnoli / Noozhawk photo)
Commissioner John Parke of Solvang responded that Chytilo had emailed him before the hearing, stating that the coalition “has worked with Graham and feels his project is worthy of support” based on “next-generation” odor-control technology.
Commissioner Mike Cooney, who represents the Carpinteria Valley, said Chytilo had left a message for him, too, stating he was representing “concerned citizens.”
Trigueiro shot back: “He is not my representative. But perhaps he represents the applicant?”
(Cooney said this past week that his remarks had been misunderstood. Chytilo, he said, had told him he was representing the coalition and made no mention of Concerned Carpinterians.)
At the hearing, Parke asked Trigueiro if she knew about the odor control and complaint management agreement that the coalition had negotiated with members of the Van Wingerden family at CVW Organic Farms on Cravens Lane. It requires the growers to monitor for the smell of cannabis in residential neighborhoods during harvest time and aggressively respond to any complaints.
Trigueiro was dismissive of such agreements, telling Parke: “I don’t think they’re worth the paper they’re written on from an enforceability standpoint, pragmatically … . You still end up with a situation where the grower is making a determination as to whether an odor complaint has merit, and that doesn’t sit right with me.”
Trigueiro vowed to appeal the commission’s approval of the warehouse project all the way up to the California Coastal Commission, if necessary. The state panel has not yet weighed in on any cannabis project in the Carpinteria Valley.
Within hours of the June 9 hearing, Concerned Carpinterians sent out the first of two unsigned emails to county leaders, accusing Chytilo of “misrepresenting” who his clients were.
In one email, the group asked the Planning Commission to consider filing a complaint against Chytilo with the State Bar of California. The group also called on the commission to conduct an “ethics inquiry” into a $20,000 donation from CARP Growers to the Foothills Forever fundraising campaign. Chytilo helped lead that effort.
In an interview, Chytilo called the attacks “unfortunate” and said he “did not appreciate being vilified through a smear campaign.
“These attacks prove that no good deed goes unpunished,” Chytilo said. “I’m working hard to try and solve a difficult community problem.”
The countywide coalition and CARP Growers expect to announce a joint odor control agreement next month, further refining the deal that’s in place for CVW Farms, Chytilo said. Both sides, he said, want to ensure that there’s no odor detectible at the growers’ property lines, he said.
“There’s no ordinance that can do that,” Chytilo said. “By voluntary agreement, everybody’s working to make it happen.”
Rob Salomon, a coalition board member, said other cannabis operators will be under pressure to match the coming agreement with CARP Growers.
“The county ordinance is so weak, particularly on enforcement, that we have to get something else in place,” he said. “The agreements we’re negotiating are not perfect. There’s going to be no perfect in this; it’s too new.”
Referring to Concerned Carpinterians, Salomon said, “We call it negotiating with the growers; they call it collaboration with overtones of evil. I don’t understand. I think what we’re doing is good. It gets the growers to commit, investigate and invest; and it provides a path to technology as it evolves.”
Planning Commission Votes to Approve 'Airtight' Cannabis Processing Warehouse
In voting 4-1 on June 9 to approve Farrar’s cannabis processing warehouse, the Planning Commission said it could not address the existing odors at G&K Farms in the same vote; any changes to the greenhouses there would require a separate zoning permit. (As part of the CARP Growers agreement, Farrar is willing to install state-of-the-art odor control technology, Chytilo said.)
The processing of cannabis — the trimming, drying and packaging of marijuana plants — is the smelliest part of commercial cannabis operations. Farrar is proposing to construct a building with an outdoor vapor-neutralizing system and 19 indoor carbon filters to “scrub” the smell of cannabis.
“It will be the first of a kind in Carpinteria,” Farrar said. “We designed this building to be airtight from the beginning.”
Farrar wants to process cannabis at his warehouse from both G&K Farms and Glass House farms, a cannabis operation he owns at 5601 Casitas Pass Road. Currently, he sends his plants to Lompoc for processing.
“We are indeed committed to improving the odor on Foothill Road,” he said. “We are confident that this project will make that better.”
Cooney called the warehouse project “a light in a dark tunnel” and said it “will do nothing but set a high standard for future processing plants.”
“We could hardly do better,” he said. “We need to have processing done locally, and we need to have it done well.”
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