After months of pressure from Colusa citizens to consider placing a cap on the number of marijuana businesses that can operate in the city, the City Council agreed to discuss it at an upcoming meeting.
Citizens also pressured city officials to “follow the money” by conducting the annual audits the manufacturing companies agreed to from the onset, and to establish odor regulations that can be legally enforced.
More than concerns about the city’s newest cannabis manufacturers seeking approval, citizens at the Aug. 2 meeting said the Colusa City Council has failed to live up to their promises to keep Colusa free of marijuana odors and has thus far refused to put “teeth” into their agreements with pot growers that will be enforced.
“Show us you will control the problem before you create new problems,” said Francis Hickel, a resident and director for Colusa-Glenn Farm Credit, who asked why odor from the pungent weed plants continues to be a problem on Main Street and Colusa Industrial Properties.
City Manager Jesse Cain said the city has learned valuable lessons since the council first embraced the legal pot industry, particularly that the city’s odor policy never legally defined odor or established any way to measure odor that would hold up in court.
Cain said when the city approved original odor regulations with the earlier cannabis companies, the city was largely dependent on the operator’s odor control plans.
“Since then, we have learned a lot on what will work and won’t work,” Cain said.
Citizens have asked the City Council to cease approving developer agreements until enforceable odor regulations are in place, including the right to shut a company down if they emit any odors.
“You can get zero odor out of any facility built,” said John Vaca. “I know a guy in Fort Bragg that has been doing it for years. He has no odors. You have to put something in the ordinance saying ‘if there are any odors, you shut down. You do not start planting until you have the facilities up and running 110 percent.’”
Vaca said the City Council allowed the companies that are currently operating in Colusa to simply come in and open up, including an open grow for several months along Highway 20.
“I don’t mind that these guys open up, but they have pockets. They can open them up too,” Vaca said.
While the current ordinance authorizes the city to fine companies up to $1,000 per day for emitting odor, the City Council never established a maximum threshold, which would make the policy enforceable.
“We’re amending it to make it a little more stringent,” Cain said, assuring the council it would be brought back for revision.
Meanwhile, the City Council, on a 4-1 vote, rejected citizen requests to amend the ordinance before approving two new developer agreements and continuing a public hearing to Aug. 16 for a third, with Councilman Greg Ponciano as the lone dissent.
“This council on numerous occasions have asked (Ordinance 519) be brought back to council to give us some teeth, to define what odor is, to define what the problems are, and to put a sunset clause in,” Ponciano said.
Ponciano agreed with concerned citizens that the ordinance should have been amended before more developer agreements with cannabis companies were approved.
“The DA process that we have right now is completely flawed,” Ponciano said, at the public hearing for Honey Pot Farms. “I’m taking a stance of nothing against the operator because (the proposed project) is very well done, but I’m very apprehensive to approve anything that puts the cart before the horse once again.”
The council, however, agreed to allow the new companies to move forward because they might be bound by new amended odor control regulations by the time they are built and ready to open, but largely because the projects have been in the works for several years and the operators have proposed updated odor control measures.
The City Council also agreed to discuss at a future meeting whether they will cap the number of companies allowed to operate, although officials said the problem thus far is that developer agreements are good for 10 years, with some companies holding on to them without bringing actual projects forward. ■