Regulating marijuana is a difficult public policy
issue that has evaded an adequate solution for decades. The passage of Prop.
64, only 53 days before I took office as 1st District Supervisor, and the decline
of the domestic flower industry forced me into the fray. It is an issue that
has been particularly divisive in our community, stirring up and adding to a
long history of grievances between Carpinteria’s flower growers and residents
around the greenhouses in which they grow.
I socialize with people on both sides of this debate
— you do too if you go to any nonprofit event in our town. The closeness of my
friendships on either side is something easy to twist to sound sordid. I have
met with people on both sides over coffee, over beer, over pizza, and
occasionally in the office to hear concerns that should be addressed and ideas
for policy. Sometimes that has meant a marijuana grower comes up with an idea I
like. Sometimes that has meant opponents of marijuana come up with something I
support (as in a ban on outdoor/hoop-house grows, migrating odor being criteria
for losing a license, and the cap on acreage). You can call those backroom
dealings, but if so I’ve had more of them with the critics of marijuana than I
have with anyone else.
One of the meetings that has been twisted to sound
dirty was an informal gathering at my house with members of the Carpinteria
Valley Association, well established in opposition to the valley’s transition
to cannabis, and associates of a local family of growers, the Van Wingerdens,
to meet with odor-control experts so residents could have a say in how odor
control developed on the grow sites. More recently, I’ve convened a group of
four growers and four opponents to talk about current community concerns
related to cannabis in an effort to bridge the divide between the two groups.
In addition to my own efforts in our community, the Board of Supervisors and
County as a whole held over 50 public meetings, including meetings around a
countywide Environmental Impact Report.