Helios Dayspring’s Shoddy North County Operations

Indicted Cannabis Grower Could Lose Last of His State Licenses to Operate in Santa Barbara County

Helios Dayspring abandoned large areas of hoop-house cultivation on his private property in the Los Padres, leaving a hard-packed surface that could create significant erosion during rains. | Credit: Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board

Two years after Helios Dayspring was caught breaking county zoning and state water quality laws — he was illegally expanding a cannabis operation on private land in Los Padres National Forest and polluting the creeks — county officials are taking steps that could lead to the shutdown of his last remaining “grow” here.

Dayspring’s rise in the Central Coast cannabis industry was swift; he opened three dispensaries in San Luis Obispo County in recent years and was granted 37 provisional state licenses for the cultivation of medical marijuana in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties. A glowing promotional video from 2017, posted on YouTube, showed footage of Dayspring as a baby and called him “The Sun King.”

Helios Dayspring, shown here on the site of his active “grow” east of Santa Maria, will plead this month to federal felony charges of bribery and tax evasion, including tax fraud in Santa Barbara County. | Credit: Silver Lake Media

“It’s a high-risk business,” Dayspring says in the video, which features his “grows” in Los Padres and Tepusquet Canyon, east of Santa Maria. “You can lose everything. You have to have the confidence to pull this shit off … We’re never leaving the mountains if we don’t have to. We’re always going to be staying out here, because this is where the true beauty of California is.”