A long-awaited Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors hearing on cannabis odor control ended in a split vote last week, as three board members voted for more study, and two said they were frustrated by the delay.
Dutch-made carbon filters, called "scrubbers," have been shown to dramatically reduce the smell of cannabis in Carpinteria Valley greenhouses before it can escape into the outside air; but at $22,000 each and a recommended density of 10 per acre, they're expensive. In addition, electrical upgrades for the scrubbers could cost tens of thousands of dollars more, a "potentially prohibitive expense," county planners told the board last Tuesday.
Board Chair Steve Lavagnino of Santa Maria and Supervisor Das Williams of Carpinteria, co-architects of the county's permissive 2018 cannabis ordinance, said it would not be advisable or fair to mandate a single clean-air technology such as scrubbers to get rid of the "skunky" smell of pot that persists in hot spots around the Carpinteria Valley, from the foothills to the beach.
Together with Supervisor Joan Hartmann, who represents the Santa Ynez Valley, they voted during the supervisors' Tuesday, April 23 meeting to commission a six-month study of the power upgrades that may be necessary in advance of scrubber installations. To date, only five of 20 active greenhouse operations in the valley are fully equipped with scrubbers, county records show.
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