Carpinteria Activists Battle over How to Stop the Cannabis Stink

One Group Negotiates, the Other Threatens State-Level Appeal

Residents of La Mirada Drive above Foothill have complained that the smell of cannabis is making them sick. Here’s their view of the greenhouse industry, including G&K Farms, at the western end of the Carpinteria Valley, looking toward Nidever Road . Many of the greenhouses in the valley were formerly in cut flowers and and are now in cannabis. | Credit: Courtesy

A grower’s proposal to build the most airtight cannabis processing warehouse in the Carpinteria Valley has exposed a growing rift between the citizens’ groups that for years have pressed the county to rein in the fast-expanding, foul-smelling cannabis industry.

Activists took opposing sides this month as the county Planning Commission approved zoning permits for a 25,400-square-foot warehouse next to five previously approved cannabis greenhouses at 3561 Foothill Road. The operation, called G&K Farms, is co-owned by Graham Farrar, a founder of CARP Growers, a group of 14 cannabis operators with about 20 separate “grows” in the valley.

One hundred members of Concerned Carpinterians, a loose-knit organization of about 300 residents, signed a petition urging the commission to vote “no” on the warehouse project. They have long complained that Farrar’s greenhouses on Foothill were sending waves of the “skunky” smell of marijuana into their homes day and night on the prevailing winds, causing them to suffer nausea, headaches, and respiratory problems.