It’s been more than two years since the Santa Barbara Coalition for Responsible Cannabis signed a peace treaty with a leading growers’ organization in the Carpinteria Valley. Today, the coalition says, that agreement is in tatters.
The agreement of August 2021 was an odor-control pact signed by the coalition, a countywide advocacy group of about 200 members, and the Cannabis Association for Responsible Producers, or CARP Growers, representing most of the valley’s greenhouse owners.
The coalition’s assent was a tacit concession that suing the growers and challenging their permits had failed to halt the wholesale conversion of the flower greenhouses ringing the beach town of Carpinteria to smelly, industrial-scale pot. Now, however, the coalition has gone back to court.
In September, the group filed a class-action lawsuit in Santa Barbara County Superior Court against Case and Alex Van Wingerden, a father and son who are members of CARP Growers. They own 19 acres of cannabis at Valley Crest Farms and Ceres Farm on Casitas Pass Road. The lawsuit alleges that the “ever-present noxious odor” and “thick, heavy, strong stench of cannabis” in the neighborhood from these operations is a violation of the state Clean Air Act.
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