This summer, cannabis growers will likely hit the county’s 186-acre cap on zoning permits in the Carpinteria Valley, now the largest greenhouse pot-producing region in California.
It’s a milestone that will trigger two critical deadlines: one of perhaps six months, officials say, for “legal-nonconforming” operators without permit approvals to stop growing cannabis altogether; and another, of perhaps a year, for growers with approvals to obtain a county business license or lose their place under the cap.
That’s good news for the citizens’ groups that have sought to rein in the lucrative and stinky industry that has taken over the valley’s old flower greenhouses since 2015. But the milestone that many residents yearn for is much more elusive — an end to the “skunky” smell of pot that wafts into homes and neighborhoods and travels along with drivers on local roads, a smell that many say brings on headaches, nausea, and breathing problems.