An environmental nonprofit has filed a lawsuit challenging an action by the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors earlier this month to allow cannabis growers to expand their grows to 20,000 square feet of commercial cannabis on a single parcel, provided they hold the proper cultivation license.
According to the Willits Environmental Center, a nonprofit that advocates for local environmental protection, the county's interpretation of a county cannabis ordinance "turns seven years of understanding and implementation of the cannabis ordinance on its head."
The county ordinance restricts growers to 10,000 square feet of commercial cultivation per parcel, provided they hold a cannabis cultivation business license, or CCBL.
Growers are allowed to hold two types of CCBLs and can trade one license for another if they submit a completed application and pay the required fees. Because of the confusion surrounding the ordinance, cultivators with a nursery license, for example, believed they would be allowed to trade the nursery license for a cultivation license and end up with two 10,000-square-foot growing areas or 20,000 square feet. The vote at the April 8 meeting allowed that interpretation of the ordinance to go forward.
Read more at The Mendocino Voice