When Your Cannabis Ordinance Becomes a Bottomless Pit, Stop Digging

Goleta Tells Santa Barbara County to Amend Cannabis Laws

Stuart Kasdin voted with a unanimous Goleta City Council to tell the County of Santa Barbara to amend its cannabis ordinance: “When you’re in a hole,” he advised county lawmakers, “stop digging.”

The county has come up against the “Law of Holes,” Goleta City Councilmember Stuart Kasdin observed, the adage that says, “When you’re in a hole, stop digging.” It’s reasonable to listen to public concerns with the county’s Cannabis Ordinance, Kasdin said: “You fix it. You don’t keep arguing.” On Tuesday afternoon, Goleta voted to join Carpinteria in sending the county a letter demanding changes to the Cannabis Ordinance, which the county wrote largely ignoring the two cities’ requests, many commented at the meeting.

In Goleta’s case, the city wants the county to prohibit
cultivation and accessory uses on parcels zoned AG-I (five or more acres). It
also wants at least a mile of setback between residential areas and AG-II
parcels (40 or more acres). No odor abatement is currently in the county
ordinance for AG-II parcels, which is an “unacceptable” outcome as
odor was a Class 1, or significant and unavoidable, impact in the Final Environmental
Impact Report (FEIR), Goleta Planning Director Peter Imhof said.

“I don’t think we’d be here,” Goleta Councilmember Roger Aceves said, “we’d be replaced,” if they’d ignored their constituents for two-and-a-half years as Carpinterian Joan Esposito claimed.

Further, distribution and other non-agricultural uses on an AG-I parcel were not analyzed in the FEIR, Imhof said, and impacts to visual resources and traffic could result. A number of public speakers added to the list of impacts they feared, including the manager of Ritz-Carlton Bacara, Roberto van Geenen. He said he was “extremely concerned” that the smell of a cannabis grow would affect his guests and his hotel’s reputation. He also worried about the health and well-being of the 700 “ladies and gentlemen” who worked at one of the largest employers in the city.