Lawsuit Against Hoop-House Ordinance Shot Down

Judge Thomas Anderle rejected a lawsuit filed by the Coalition for Responsible Cannabis that challenged the adequacy of the environmental review conducted as part of the County of Santa Barbara’s controversial new hoop-house ordinance, passed by the Board of Supervisors last year. The cannabis coalition, represented by attorney Marc Chytilo, argued that the county supervisors so changed the terms of the proposed ordinance from what the county’s Planning Commission initially reviewed and what the Environmental Impact Report had analyzed that additional environmental analysis was needed.

While Chytilo has a history of success with such cases in Judge Anderle’s courtroom, Anderle bought none of Chytilo’s arguments in this case. Chytilo represents vintner Blair Pence, who has been waging an expensive campaign to slow down the spread of what he’s termed unchecked cannabis in the Santa Ynez Valley. Because hoop structures are much used by inland cannabis operators — to reduce solar scorching and conserve water, among other reasons — Pence and the coalition had lobbied the supervisors to impose greater restrictions and zoning requirements on the erection of new hoop houses for cannabis cultivation in the county’s new Hoop Structures Ordinance.