It’s been a busy month for the newly activated Sheriff’s Cannabis Compliance Team, the law enforcement arm tasked with eliminating Santa Barbara County’s illegal marijuana cultivation sites.
Since Sept. 6, deputies and collaborating police officers destroyed more than 15,000 pot plants with what they said had an estimated street value of $7 million to $9 million.
“We are firmly committed to doing this going forward,” Deputy CEO Dennis Bozanich told the Sun.
Bozanich’s words echoed the same comments he made on Sept. 19 in Santa Barbara at a meeting designed to provide updates for the county’s cannabis growers. There, the county’s top cannabis regulatory and enforcement official expressed frustration with the community for not applying for the appropriate documentation to legalize their grows through his office.
As of Oct. 2, only around half of cannabis operators in Santa Barbara County with temporary state licenses have approached staff for an annual land-use permit. Meanwhile, all temporary licenses issued by the state are set to expire on Dec. 31 of this year. And the pathway set by the county for legalization involves cannabis operators acquiring a county-issued land-use permit and business license. The marijuana business owner then takes those documents to the state for an annual license.
“This is a pathway to keep you in compliance so we don’t have to do enforcement,” Bozanich warned on Sept. 19. A week before, the county’s Cannabis Compliance Team conducted a sweeping operation in Tepusquet Canyon, where authorities destroyed some 1,400 pot plants.
County officials and the Sheriff’s Office have floated for months that black market grows would be targeted leading up to the end-of-year deadline for the temporary state licenses. Their argument is simple, companies and sites that avoid taxes and regulation get an unfair competitive advantage over those that are trying to stay above board. It’s not about a war on drugs, county officials say, it’s about eliminating bad actors.
It’s why few in the local cannabis community expressed surprise when questioned by the Sun regarding the recent series of compliance team raids on Sept. 25, 26, and 28. Those operations, ranging from Foxen Canyon to New Cuyama, netted some 14,000 marijuana plants worth an estimated $7 million.
Law enforcement typically calculates the value of a confiscated drug by multiplying its weight with an estimated average street value, which is left to the discretion of the individual agency.
The Sheriff’s Office marijuana enforcement team is expected to conduct more operations in the coming months.
This article appears in Oct 4-11, 2018.