Ivory is good with a pair of scissors. She used to trim hair; then she trimmed pot.
Yes, trimming the buds of marijuana plants has long been a lucrative job in California — especially since the state made medical use legal more than 20 years ago. It was a perfect gig for those not interested in finding permanent employment. During the harvest season, Ivory and her friends could earn up to $200 a day — in cash, with no taxes and no social security. It only lasted about six months, and then you could travel the world or do whatever you wanted until the next harvest — and there would always be a next harvest. Now, as state after state legalizes and regulates what old-timers still call marijuana, the job of the trimmer, along with the whole cannabis industry, is going mainstream.
Santa Barbara has never had the reputation of Humboldt County, where scary dudes infamously ran around in camo outfits and carried AK-47s to protect their marijuana crops — but plenty of pot was grown here. So when Proposition 64 passed last year, legalizing recreational cannabis sales, county supervisors called a formal hearing. They wanted to get an idea of who might apply for one of the many legal “seed-to-sale” permits the county will require. Imagine their surprise when the room filled to capacity with sunburned tomato farmers, hipster millenials, and unfamiliar men in expensive suits who looked like they had just sped up from Beverly Hills.