cannabis

Sonoma County BOS passes new cannabis business regulations

Emma Murphy, PRESS DEMOCRAT

In the brisk early hours Tuesday morning, Scott Orr, Sonoma County’s planning and permitting director, posted outside the main administrative building yellow and orange signs showing the distance of proposed setback requirements for commercial cannabis farms.

Land-use policy discussions don’t often include such displays, but the signs were another signal of the sharp debate that was expected to prevail Tuesday as the Board of Supervisors was set to adopt revised and controversial regulations governing the commercial cannabis industry outside city limits.

The ordinance overhaul marks the first significant change to the county’s regulations of commercial cannabis cultivation, sales and distribution since 2018.

The board voted 4 to 1 to adopt the new rules, which will take effect July 1.

The vote capped a fractious and labored process launched by the county in 2021 to amend its rules governing commercial cannabis and settle years of criticism from the local legal industry seeking relief from what they called a burdensome permitting process. Residents, as well, have been outspoken, seeking stronger safeguards against noise, odor and strain on limited water supplies.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2025/12/09/sonoma-county-board-of-supervisors-passes-new-cannabis-business-regulations/

Agriculture/Food System, Land Use, , , , ,

Close to Home: Supervisors double down on ‘inebriation tourism’

Judith Olney, PRESS DEMOCRAT

Once again, the Board of Supervisors is ready to throw Sonoma County taxpayers under the proverbial bus — and then back over us.

On Oct. 28, the board will discuss a cannabis ordinance that would reduce permit fees for cannabis cultivation on properties of 10 acres or more with agricultural or rural resource zoning, with operations only 100 feet from neighboring residences. In addition, the ordinance would allow events with cannabis consumption and sales.

After lowering fees for cannabis growers, the county still must pay for infrastructure and other public services, which means increasing the burden on other taxpayers.

It was bad enough when the supervisors granted the cannabis industry significant tax breaks, leaving residential taxpayers and businesses to cover the shortfall in revenue. Now, contrary to state regulations, the proposed ordinance includes unmitigated rights to host cannabis events, even on parcels that don’t have permits for cannabis cultivation, which require safety measures and qualified on-site security personnel.

With up to 104 event days per venue, plus large-scale cannabis events under zoning permits, the cannabis industry is securing more rights than the wine industry.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2025/10/26/close-to-home-supervisors-double-down-on-inebriation-tourism/

Agriculture/Food System, Land Use, , , , ,

Sonoma County accused of using drones to spy on residents

Lester Black, SFGATE

Sonoma County has been accused of deploying hundreds of drone flights over residents in a “runaway spying operation” that has violated the constitutional rights and privacy of locals, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The North Bay county of Sonoma initially started the 6-year-old drone program to track illegal cannabis cultivation, but the lawsuit alleges that officials have since turned it into a widespread program to catch unrelated code violations at residential properties and levy millions of dollars in fines. The program has captured 5,600 images during more than 700 flights, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit is asking Sonoma County Superior Court to halt the county’s use of drones with a warrant. Matt Cagle, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Foundation of Northern California, said in a Wednesday news release that the county “has hidden these unlawful searches from the people they have spied on, the community, and the media.”

Red more at https://www.sfgate.com/cannabis/article/sonoma-county-drone-aclu-lawsuit-20363620.php

Land Use, ,

Supes say no to cannabis moratorium, recommend ‘wide net’ exploring policy options

Brandon McCapes, SOCONEWS

The county’s comprehensive update of its cannabis cultivation ordinance was back before the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors Sept. 28 — and along with it came the usual controversy between cannabis farmers and anti-cannabis neighborhood groups.

After hours of presentations, discussion and public comments, the supervisors approved county staff’s recommendations that seven broad topics be explored in the context of the future ordinance and the environmental impact review (EIR), per staff recommendation.

Significantly, a moratorium on cannabis cultivation permits was not included in the list of recommendations nor supported by the board. A moratorium of all new cannabis cultivation permits until the adoption of the new cannabis ordinance is an option favored by neighborhood and environmental groups, and one the board has discussed. Earlier last month, the board passed a 45-day moratorium on new multi-tenant cannabis permits, but not on cannabis permits altogether.

On June 8, the supervisors directed county staff to complete a comprehensive update of the county’s cannabis ordinance, based on community input and an EIR. Though public outreach will continue throughout the three-year process, slated to end in 2024, this summer’s public outreach efforts were a first step toward an ordinance update, according to the board’s meeting agenda report.

Read more at https://soconews.org/scn_county/supes-say-no-to-cannabis-moratorium-recommend-wide-net-exploring-policy-options/article_a1e2bff0-2dd2-11ec-a9d9-ff30ec144a7f.html?utm_source=soconews.org&utm_campaign=%2Fnewsletters%2Fheadlines-soconews-west-county%2F%3F-dc%3D1634320840&utm_medium=email&utm_content=headline

Agriculture/Food System,

County set to hit the cannabis ordinance reset button next week

Rollie Atkinson, SOCONEWS

Four days of virtual vision sessions set beginning of three-year EIR and update process

After pulling the plug earlier this year on comprehensive updates to commercial cannabis cultivation ordinances and rules, Sonoma County planners and consultants are launching their self-proclaimed reboot next week with a series of virtual visioning sessions to gather public input on an eventual environmental impact report and proposed ordinance.

The reboot is the first step of a projected timeline of public workshops, draft ordinance work, draft environmental impact report (EIR) completion, planning commission hearings and culminating in the summer of 2024 with Sonoma County Board of Supervisors public hearings.

No one said writing rules to regulate a potential billion-dollar crop of commercial cannabis would be easy. The previous sessions of draft proposals, virtual town hall workshops, planning commission votes and the supervisor’s ultimate call for a “reboot” involved well over a thousand citizen comments and the specter of potential lawsuits.

The public virtual sessions will be held each day from Aug. 9 to Aug. 12, with duplicate sessions held each morning (11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.) and repeated in the evening (5:30 to 7:30 p.m.) Public comments will be taken by written responses only in a “chat board” format on a Zoom platform.

Read more at https://soconews.org/scn_county/county-set-to-hit-the-cannabis-ordinance-reset-button-next-week/article_d106b014-f652-11eb-be8d-8bf4d6bce2e1.html?

Agriculture/Food System, Land Use,

Thieves are stealing California’s scarce water. Where’s it going? Illegal marijuana farms

Julie Cart, CALMATTERS

In Mendocino County, the thefts from rivers and streams are compromising already depleted Russian River waterways. In one water district there, thefts from hydrants could compromise a limited water supply for fighting fires, which is why they have put locks on hydrants.

One day last spring, water pressure in pipelines suddenly crashed In the Antelope Valley, setting off alarms. Demand had inexplicably spiked, swelling to three and half times normal. Water mains broke open, and storage tanks were drawn down to dangerous levels.

The emergency was so dire in the water-stressed desert area of Hi Vista, between Los Angeles and Mojave, that county health officials considered ordering residents to boil their tap water before drinking it.

“We said, ‘Holy cow, what’s happening?’” said Anish Saraiya, public works deputy for Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger.

It took a while for officials to figure out where all that water was going: Water thieves — likely working for illicit marijuana operations — had pulled water from remote filling stations and tapped into fire hydrants, improperly shutting off valves and triggering a chain reaction that threatened the water supply of nearly 300 homes.

Read more at https://calmatters.org/environment/2021/07/illegal-marijuana-growers-steal-california-water/

Agriculture/Food System, Water, ,

County’s cannabis update may be headed for a detour

Rollie Atkinson, SONOMA WEST TIMES & NEWS

Narrow planning commissioners vote calls for a more comprehensive environmental impact study

Plans of the Sonoma County’s Board of Supervisors to streamline the permitting process for commercial cannabis cultivation may be headed for a detour following a close Sonoma County Planning Commission vote held last week that is recommending a “more comprehensive update” in conjunction with a full Environmental Impact Report (EIR.) If approved by the supervisors, the EIR process could take more than a year to complete, several attendees of the April 15 commission session predicted.

New cannabis permits can still be filed under current rules included in the older 2018 ordinance while the supervisors consider their next steps, but there is already a large backlog of pending applications.

Last week’s planning commission action follows two years of county staff work and monitoring by a supervisor’s cannabis ad hoc committee (led by Supervisors James Gore and Lynda Hopkins) seeking to replace lengthy public review and planning commission hearings with a “ministerial” process led by the county’s agricultural commissioner’s office.

That goal was also stymied when the planning commission voted 3-2 to not classify cannabis operations as “agriculture” and “agricultural use” and to vacate earlier recommendations to include a broader General Plan update. Defining cannabis as a crop would better support the streamlined permitting process sought by the ad hoc committee and others.

A public hearing in front of the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors on the updated ordinance is tentatively scheduled for May 18. The April 15 commission resolution was introduced by commissioner Cam Mauritson and supported by Lawrence Reed and Gina Belforte. It was opposed by chair Greg Carr and member Pam Davis. Reed said he favored the motion to “try to get relief to small growers” while a new EIR process proceeds. Davis said she was “not totally comfortable” with the proposals and favored designating cannabis as an “ag activity.”

Read more at https://www.sonomawest.com/sonoma_west_times_and_news/news/county-s-cannabis-update-may-be-headed-for-a-detour/

Agriculture/Food System, Land Use,
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