On May 5, the SLO County Board of Supervisors passed a hemp ordinance that sets stringent requirements on growers in an effort that four supervisors said is about distancing hemp away from communities, residents, and other types of agriculture.
The rules—first put forth by 5th District Supervisor Debbie Arnold during the May 5 board meeting—require outdoor hemp farmers to find at least a 400-acre-sized parcel, where the crop must be set back 2,000 feet from property lines and be located at least a mile from any community’s urban reserve line.
The regulations also prohibit hemp from being grown in Edna Valley—a wine region that soured on the crop due to past issues with grows.
“My goal here is to reduce conflict,” Arnold said of the ordinance revisions, which the board adopted in a 4-1 vote.
In passing the ordinance, the supervisors scrapped what had been recommended by the SLO County Planning Commission, an ordinance developed over the past year with input from the Agricultural Liaison Advisory Board and a subcommittee composed of hemp, wine, and vegetable industry members.
That version of the rules set minimum parcel sizes for hemp of 5 and 10 acres, (for indoor and outdoor grows, respectively), and allowed the crop to be grown within 1,000 feet of urban reserve lines.
The sudden course change drew strong rebukes from growers and the SLO County Farm Bureau.
“This was a heavy-handed move,” said Brent Burchett, the executive director of the SLO County Farm Bureau. “Now, [hemp] is effectively banned. It’s devastating for small farmers.”
The revisions blindsided hemp growers, Burchett told New Times.
“We’ve had months and months of input and stakeholder meetings,” he said. “Why do we even give input if they were going to make this decision all along? They feel like their input was disregarded, that they’re not included in this community.”
Second District Supervisor Bruce Gibson, the lone dissenting vote on the ordinance, called it “an assault on agriculture.”
“By going to the extreme parcel sizes, the extreme setbacks, you’ve effectively made it impossible to grow hemp,” Gibson said during the meeting. “The direction I’ve heard here is simply bad for agriculture. … We are on a slippery slope.”
Supervisors in favor of the stricter rules said they wanted to protect communities and farmers from potential impacts. Those include odor, pesticide drift, and terpene taint—the concept that cannabis compounds can negatively impact nearby wine grapes. Terpene taint needs more scientific study to be fully understood, stakeholders on both sides said.
“We have a wine and tourism economy. I don’t know why we’d want to jeopardize that,” 4th District Supervisor Lynn Compton said during the meeting.
Critics of the ordinance countered that terpene taint, and hemp’s other potential impacts, could’ve been addressed in a less prohibitive way.
Hemp has been largely banned in SLO County since June 2019 after Congress removed it from the Schedule 1 substances list and made it a federally legal crop. A few dozen commercial and research grows were given vested rights prior to the ban. How many of those growers will be able to continue in SLO County under the new ordinance is unknown.
“I guess they wanted to pass a ban and they passed a ban,” said Sean Donahoe, one of the growers involved in the subcommittee that provided input for the ordinance. “Unfortunately, what you saw again is a deliberative process that’s committed to in good faith and a staff presentation that tries to represent the results of that process … and then board deliberations that go completely beyond the public realm of conversation.” Δ
This article appears in May 7-17, 2020.
Congratulations to the supervisors. Hemp has a powerful and offensive odor (we’ve had plenty of opportunity to find that out from the cultivation along LOVR last year). The same limitations are found on cattle feedlots and other activities which create offensive odors.
Thanks for the insightful solutions.
Yes, a bit heavy-handed, but the whole push towards hemp grows and their effect on other agriculture needs to be studied before proceeding. Impossible to put the genie back in the bottle.
Right on Supervisors! This is why I voted against Ellen (the hippie). She was in the pockets of MJ growers.
Find another place grow your sheet dopers. And don’t give me some nonsense about help is cool ma’aan. The cheating does growers that recently got caught growing THC laden hemp blew it for your crowd. Which is fine by me, because I never trust a doper.
Wow, typo central. Rewritten, I meant + some:
Right on Supervisors! This is why I voted against Ellen Beraud (the hippie). She was in the (not so) hip pocket of MJ growers.
Find another place to grow your sheet, dopers. And don’t give me some nonsense about how it’s all cool ma’aan. The cheating dope growers that recently got caught growing THC laden hemp blew it for your imbecillic crowd. Which is fine by me, because life at 52 yo in my native CA has taught me to never trust a doper.
Hateful language toward the Hemp industry does nothing to help your case. There is a vast difference between “dope” and Hemp; do your research before you comment on the situation. Many of the small farmers who wanted to contribute in a positive manor not only financially but also follow the rules of the the originally planned regulations are being greatly affected and are losing hundreds of thousands of dollars, some of them millions. No place for name calling and hatred in this forum and I highly suggest everyone learn to get along, the Hemp industry isn’t going anywhere.
The action taken by the BOS is a clear violation of property rights. It is clear that a class action suit is moving forward. The law has been broken by the board majority and either they need to step up and do what Sonoma County did or suffer a legal battle.
Dopers are dopers. The LE fact is a couple hemp farmers got caught growing THC weed against the permits provided to them.
#NeverTrustDopers
Or their lackeys
#NEVERTRUSTTRUMPANZEES!
Typical of our supervisors who are in office with the money of various developers and anti-marijuana nuts. As a psychologist, I am totally against the use of marijuana prior to age 26, when the brain is fully developed. They should go after those who sell any to those below age 21 because of the common abuse of alcohol inn this county which is much worse than marijuana. Going after the growers is over reach and inconsistent with good fiscal policy.
The irony in supporting an alcohol crop.