Sonoma set for melee over proposed cannabis ordinance
Just south of the historic Washoe House bar northwest of Petaluma, the first hints of neighborhood agitations against the area’s nascent cannabis industry appear on the asphalt of Pepper Road.
In barely discernible white spray painted letters, someone has pledged neighbors’ wholesale opposition to marijuana cultivation in the bucolic Liberty Valley, home to numerous Sonoma County dairies.
Ron Evenich’s family has lived on Pepper Lane, just off of Pepper Road, since 1969. His property sits a few houses down from more formal vinyl signage calling for “No Pot on Pepper.”
Evenich still has the tank his family used to haul water daily during the mid-1970s drought, but at the onset of another historically dry year, his focus sits squarely on the push for nearby cannabis cultivation and the fear that a looming change to Sonoma County land use codes could make the threat even more ubiquitous.
“It’s gonna be a free-for-all,” he said.
This rural enclave in the dairylands west of Petaluma has become a microcosm in the burgeoning battle between Sonoma County’s rural neighborhoods and commercial pot operators. Neighbors here have joined far-flung residents across the county in what they see as a fight for their rural existence – an effort to fend off a streamlined cannabis cultivation ordinance set to come before the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.
“I think there is a lot at stake,” said Board of Supervisors Chair Lynda Hopkins, who helped develop the ordinance as part of the board’s cannabis ad-hoc committee. “Cannabis cultivators feel like the future of cannabis in Sonoma County is at stake. Neighbors, they feel their very quality of life and the health of the environment is at stake. I think it’s a very existential debate on both sides of the aisle.”
Cannabis ordinance
The proposed ordinance, which is more than two years in the making, transfers cultivation approval to the county’s Department of Agriculture through a so-called ministerial permitting process and opens up more of the county’s acreage to pot, among other changes.
The county’s planning commissioners last month approved the ordinance, with some key changes, setting up what’s likely to be a contentious discussion during the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday.
County leaders and growers say the change is desperately needed amid years of bureaucratic morass that have delayed permitting for legally allowable operations.
“Reform to the existing ordinance is urgently needed,” Hopkins said. “Right now, going through the use permit process for cannabis is clear as mud, and it disproportionately favors the wealthy. There is far too much ambiguity for all sides about what constitutes a good location for cannabis.”
Supervisor James Gore, Hopkins’ counterpart on the board’s cannabis ad-hoc, called the current cannabis approval structure an “abject failure,” but he said he wasn’t sure supervisors would commit to wholesale change at their next meeting.
“I think there’s going to be a big discussion, and we’re going to see if we’re able to get to consensus,” said Gore, whose sister-in-law runs a cannabis business in Cloverdale. “If we do that, we’ll probably have to bring it back a couple of times to figure out the details.”
Supervisor David Rabbitt, who represents the south county, including Petaluma’s rural outskirts, has long been protective of outlying neighborhoods. He was the lone “no” vote when Sonoma Hills Farm was up for approval October 2019, and even as that farm in January celebrated its first permitted crop, Rabbitt remains reluctant to support the burgeoning industry – particularly where it may come into conflict with residents.
“I don’t think we’ve done enough to protect rural residential neighborhoods,” said Rabbitt, adding that new rules must steer cannabis operations to more compatible areas. “We just need to make sure our ordinance pushes people to those sites, and we haven’t been as successful as I would like in the south county.”
If approved, the proposed ordinance would allow outdoor cannabis plantings to comprise 10 percent of a single parcel, and neighborhood groups have sounded the alarm that the change opens up tens of thousands of acres to commercial cannabis.
“If they (approve the changes) on the 18th, you’re gonna see marijuana farms pop up all around the county line and Petaluma,” said Evenich, who serves as the Pepper Road representative to the countywide neighborhood group opposing the ordinance.
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