In a sweeping decision that puts a seal of approval on the county’s embrace of the fast-growing cannabis industry in rural areas, a Santa Barbara County Superior Court judge this week tossed out a citizens’ lawsuit that sought to shut down a 22-acre cannabis hoop-house operation on Highway 246.
Noting that “this is a very important case,” Judge Thomas Anderle ruled on Tuesday that the county’s environmental review and zoning permit for Busy Bee’s Organics, a mile west of Buellton, were fully in compliance with state laws and county land-use policies. The right time to sue, he said, was back in early 2018, when the county Board of Supervisors certified an environmental impact report (EIR) and adopted ordinances governing cannabis cultivation and licensing.
The judge roundly dismissed allegations by the Santa Barbara Coalition for Responsible Cannabis, the plaintiff in the case, that the county failed to consider or address the impacts of the burgeoning industry on vineyards, orchards, and row crops and instead swept them under the rug.
The coalition was asking the court to halt operations at Busy Bee’s and order the county to review whether the stench of cannabis plants from the expanding cannabis operations west of Buellton, including Busy Bee’s, was hurting the lucrative wine-tasting business; whether conflicts over pesticide “drift” from traditional crops onto cannabis were posing problems for farmers; and whether the smelly gases, or “terpenes,” given off by cannabis could be absorbed through the skins of wine grapes, “tainting” the quality of regional wines.
Read more at independent.com.