Mendocino County’s cannabis ordinance has been an utter failure, the natural result of an incredibly complex framework mandated by the state and grossly understaffed by county. Supervisor Haschak and I have been actively engaged on a daily basis, working with state agencies, performing pilot studies with staff, digging deep to analyze why the program has failed and brainstorming paths forward. We don’t have all of the answers, but it’s important to review the overarching goal.
California voters decided incarceration over a plant was poor public policy and steered our state away from the failed war on drugs.
Mendocino County gained the opportunity to legitimize a long standing economic backbone. A robust regulated industry has potential to mitigate unwanted consequences of the industry, namely environmental destruction and violent crime. The first (and only executed) phase focused on prioritizing the transition of existing cultivators, those with proof of prior farming. Using public policy to create a monopoly, essentially rigging the market to only allow legacy cultivators, lacks legal foundation, but starting permitting with a focus of transitioning the existing market was common sense.
Out of the estimated 9,000 cultivation sites, about 1,100 applied, with less than 275 receiving county permits and only a few receiving state annual licenses. Annual state licenses will be required starting Jan 1, 2022 when renewal of state provisional licenses are scheduled to sunset.
Mendocino County cultivators are presently positioned to involuntarily revert to the illicit market, jeopardizing the County’s cannabis business tax, which at present generates almost $6M/year in revenue.
When California voters approved Proposition 64, cannabis farming was not declared to be agriculture, but rather commercial activity subject to the California Environmental Quality Act. CEQA compliance was met at a county level through a Mitigated Negative Declaration, which went unchallenged. Essentially, grandfathering existing activity did not create a new environmental impact.
One of the major obstacles facing the program today is not the result of a poorly crafted county framework or staff execution. Rather, our state’s Department of Food and Agriculture decided to demand site specific CEQA analysis beyond what regulation appears to support. (See quote from regulation below.)
The county’s fee schedule was not designed around this added requirement, which could add 35,000 hours of planning staff work, well beyond the capabilities of county staffing no matter how many positions we open and attempt to fill.
Supervisor Haschak and I have not taken an adversarial position with the state, instead pleading for collaboration. The issue is not whether our colleagues will find support to direct staff to complete the state’s work, but rather, basic feasibility.
One fallback position might be for the county to work on county permits, our actual obligation, leaving the state to work with applicants directly to meet state CEQA requirements. This would leave the county in a more manageable position, but will it facilitate the original goal of transitioning the market from illegal to regulated or will the cultivators be forced out of the legal market? CDFA argues the state does not have staff to directly process CEQA documents, even though this is their legal obligation.
On Tuesday, the special BOS meeting will focus on what has been termed Phase 3 cultivation, agendized to discuss and approve a proposed zoning table. Under, Proposition 64 implementing a new cultivation ordinance will become more challenging after June, 2021. Planning needs to begin now, in order to prepare an ordinance for next spring.
We asked Planning to produce a map to visualize the areas which would be eligible for cultivation under the proposed zoning table. Unfortunately, most of the legacy cultivation will be excluded.
The problems I see:
• Vision: transition farms from illegal to legal and enforce ordinance
• Most cultivators: on resource land
• Proposed zoning: bans resource land
• Success: inductively impossible.
It’s impossible to force cultivators into the legal market if we ban the cultivators’ land or in the case of this proposal, almost all of our landmass. Our county has very little Ag zoning.
It may be that our entire approach is wrong. Instead of focusing on zoning classifications, should we focus on mitigating specific adverse impacts? Increased commercial traffic does not belong in residential neighborhoods. Forest land should not be cleared. Plastics should be avoided. Environmentally backed and neighborhood protective farming standards, not zoning codes, could steer policy to better balance competing needs. Our model should promote sustainable and resilient cottage farming, not intensive, climate and culture damaging agribusiness. By approving a zoning chart which categorically excludes the bulk of existing cultivation, local regulation will become the new prohibition, furthering an outlaw model and preventing the application of regulation. It leaves law enforcement with two possibilities: look the other way or bust small family farms.
Code Sections
(§ 8102. Annual License Application Requirements.
(r) Evidence of exemption from, or compliance with, division 13 (commencing with section 21000) of the Public Resources Code, California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The evidence provided shall be one of the following:
(1) A signed copy of a project specific Notice of Determination or Notice of Exemption and a copy of the associated CEQA document, or reference to where it may be located electronically, a project description, and/or any accompanying permitting documentation from the local jurisdiction used for review in determining site specific environmental compliance;…)
Chris Calder Comments
A looong-ass explanation of why weed legalization is moving from failure to catastrophe. Supervisor Williams focuses more on the environmental destruction, but the fact is, very scary organized crime, using legal grows as cover, has decided that, more than ever, Mendocino County is the place to do business.
Here's a nugget of relevant truth amid the bureaucratese:
"Out of the estimated 9,000 cultivation sites, about 1,100 applied, with less than 275 receiving county permits and only a few receiving state annual licenses."
Legalization has never touched more than a tiny fraction of weed growers, while providing cover for the mafia and bringing county government to its fiscal knees with undoable weed-related mandates.
The Mendocino County Sheriff last week made an urgent request for state and federal law enforcement help to combat mafia growers who are getting increasingly bold, commandeering neighbors' and firefighters' water supplies, running slave camps, plotting military style assaults on deputies.
The response could well include the National Guard.* I think that's part of the reason for the special meeting on weed the Board of Supervisors is having next Tuesday. The prospect of soldiers entering your county tends to get local officials' attention.
Legalization has never been in the picture for more than a tiny fraction of growers, and now the legal.market is being gamed by global-level criminals. Earnest sounds notwithstanding, county government is spinning its wheels and blaming the state.
This problem is too big for them. They should be spending money and time on the very, very basics for this county: roads and public health and safety.. Regulating an unregulatable "industry" is far, far beyond their capability. It has turned out to be a crushing financial burden, not a public windfall, and is only getting worse.
Be honest with state government and the people: you're not "regulating cannabis" so don't pretend to. Suspend the county program and go very public with that. State government is the only one who can clean up this mess - if anybody can - or, literally, the military could end up involved.
Carpet bomb 101 between Hopland and Cloverdale, that will shut down the Bay Area Hanoi trail. Nixon knew how to fight a war