Although hundreds of citizens wrote letters urging the supervisors not to pass the new Commercial Cannabis Activity Land Use Development Ordinance (CCAO) in June of 2021, and hundreds attended board and planning department meetings strongly urging them not to pass the ordinance, it fell on deaf ears.
The board voted 4–1 in favor (with Supervisor John Haschak dissenting) and passed the ordinance allowing applicants with parcels in certain zones to apply to grow cannabis on up to 10 per cent of their parcel; i.e., giving farmers the potential to expand their grows considerably.
It wasn't until Kate Marianchild, Ellen Drell and 70-80 volunteers collected over 6,000 signatures—within a month—petitioning the board to cap expansion at 10,000 square fee per legal parcel, that they finally heard the roar of the crowd.
In September, the supervisors rescinded the CCAO, 5-0, the very same ordinance they had voted to approve less than two months prior.
According to a letter from the Willits Environmental Center, on April 24, 2024, Cannabis Department staff informed members at the General Government Committee meeting that they would be implementing a new interpretation of Section 10.A.17.070(D) of the Cannabis Cultivation Ordinance. This would allow, in some instances, cultivation areas to be doubled to 20,000 square feet.
At issue here is the interpretation of Section 10.A.17.070(D) of the ordinance which addresses the number of licenses allowed per parcel and not cultivation area size. It states that a person who obtains a nursery license (22,000 square feet) in combination with any other type of license (growing plants to maturity, not more than 10,000 square feet) shall not exceed a total of 22,000 square feet. It does not state that a person may obtain two non-nursery licenses for cultivation of 20,000 square feet.
On April 25, Interim Director Mendocino Cannabis Department Steve Dunnicliff issued a memorandum to the cannabis department staff intending to clarify Section 10A.17.070(D) and revise any past interpretations that were inconsistent with this policy.
The memo states that previously the section was utilized to limit a person's mature cannabis cultivation to 10,000 square fee per parcel; however, after further review, the plain meaning of the text does not prescribe such a limit. That it only refers to those who hold nursery licenses and an additional type of license and there is no such limit prescribed to a person who obtains two non-nursery business licenses on one parcel, thus allowing for the expansion of maximum grow area to 20,000 square feet.
In response to this memo, Supervisor Dan Gjerde wrote to Dunnicliff and CEO Darcie Antle inquiring if properties zoned RR5 with a maximum allowable 5,000 square feet, would now be allowed to become10,000; if supervisors could receive an opinion from the county counsel's office confirming that county counsel believes this new interpretation of county code is consistent with state law and county code; and requesting that the memo be agendized for discussion at a Board of Supervisor's meeting in July.
The Willits Environmental Center wrote a letter to the Board of Supervisors stating they believe this interpretation is a mis-reading of the section; that nowhere does it state that a person who obtains two licenses to grow plants to maturity be able to grow up to 20,000 square feet.
They requested the Board reject this clarification and inform the Cannabis Department to withdraw the notice and not allow any applicants to go forward with this.
According to Ellen Drell, board member of the Willits Environmental Center, when the original ordinance was written back in 2016-2017, there was one allowable permit per legal parcel and the maximum was set at 2,500 square feet, 5,000 square feet and up to 10,000 square feet depending on zoning and parcel size.
"It's unclear who or how this new interpretation was initiated and it has not been sent to the Board of Supervisors," she says.
According to Dunnicliff's memo, it is a clarification and not a re- interpretation and according to Supervisors John Haschak and Glen McGourty, who serve on the GGC, although only 4 people have applied for the permit in the last couple of months, nothing has changed. It has, they say, all along, for the past seven years, been interpreted and implemented to allow for a person to acquire two 10,000 square foot licenses on one parcel.
"That's not what it says," says Drell, "and in a situation of ambiguity, you look at the history of how the ordinance was formed, the discussions that took place. The language is clear, referencing the maximum at 10,000 square feet."
There were accommodations made for multiple families growing on one parcel where they were allowed to have multiple permits but, still, the total could not exceed 10,000 square feet.
According to Drell, at the April 24 meeting of the GGC, cannabis department staff presented the correct interpretation, stating that, in fact, they had been misinterpreting the section all along.
"After a bit of pushback from Supervisor McGourty, staff said it's not a change, just a reinterpretation, that the decision had been made and was already being implemented.
"Staff needs the latitude to make certain decisions but, in this case, to say that although we have been telling people for seven years that they can't grow more than 10,000 square feet and now they can actually grow 20,000 square feet is far from a minor change.
"The Board of Supervisors cannot allow their authority to be usurped in the area of policy and it's about the board taking responsibility for making policy and staff implementing the policy, not the other way around.
"We're urging the board to tell staff not to implement this; that there hasn't been due process or engagement of the public or, for that matter, any looking at the potential environmental ramifications.
Laws, of course, can be changed. But if they're going to be changed, they need to go through a process that involves county-wide public involvement."
The GGC committee met on June 26 confirming that the provision for a 22,000 square-foot nursery in Section 10.A.17.070(D) had, all along, meant that it was allowable to have 20,000 square feet for mature plants.
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