The owners of one of the largest cannabis operations in the Carpinteria Valley, leaders in the effort to prevent the smell of pot from drifting into homes, have turned their attention to a new problem: controlling noise.
Ed Van Wingerden, the owner of Ever-Bloom, a greenhouse operation with 11 acres of cannabis under cultivation at 4701 Foothill Road, was sued in 2020 for allegedly releasing “noxious odor” into the densely populated neighborhoods next door. One of the plaintiffs in the case was Paul Ekstrom, a retired firefighter whose property on Manzanita Street shares a backyard fence with Ever-Bloom.
In 2022, Van Wingerden installed 110 expensive carbon filters called “scrubbers,” imported from the Netherlands, that are proven to remove most of the “skunky” smell of pot before it can escape through the roof vents. Ekstrom began to breathe fresh air again.
But the ink was barely dry on the lawsuit settlement papers last July when Ekstrom began firing off weekly emails to Ever-Bloom representatives, county planners, city officials, citizens’ groups, the local growers’ association, and reporters with a new complaint: “LOUD noise.”
Read more at: independent.com