Pot Growers Calling SB County's Bluff on Carp Valley Odor Clean-Up

Half of the cannabis greenhouse industry will miss the March 18 deadline set by the county for installing filters to get rid of the sickening smell of pot.

By Melinda Burns /Santa Barbara News-Press

A year ago, the county Board of Supervisors gave cannabis greenhouse growers in the Carpinteria Valley until this March 18 to clean up the pungent smell of pot that still lingers in hot spots around the Carpinteria Valley, eight years after the county rolled out the red carpet for the industry.

Now, as the deadline approaches, it appears that more than half of valley growers are calling the board’s bluff.

The board in 2025 ordered the growers to install “multi-technology carbon filtration” systems known as “scrubbers” inside their greenhouses. One model, manufactured in the Netherlands and tested in the valley in 2022, had been found, on average, to remove 84 percent of the smell of pot before it could escape through the open vents on greenhouse roofs and into neighborhoods.

The board also required growers to shut down the perfumed “misting” systems they were using for odor control by this March 18. Between mid-2018 and March 2025, county records show, the stink of pot and the “laundromat” smell of these systems generated more than 4,000 odor complaints to the county. None were ever enforced.

A year ago, the board warned the growers that they could risk losing their county business licenses if they failed to meet the deadline for scrubbers, But there was an out: If they encountered supply chain delays or problems with electrical upgrades, they could request a one-time extension of up to one year, including for their misting systems, the supervisors said.

Most of the growers are in no hurry to comply.

Of 19 greenhouse operations with separate addresses in the valley, only nine, covering 58 acres of cannabis under cultivation, are equipped with scrubbers, mostly the Dutch-made “Envinity” model, county records show. Of the nine, only three came online with scrubbers in the past year: the rest had them in place before the board vote.

At the same time, records show, 10 operations with 60 acres of cannabis under cultivation have no scrubbers inside their greenhouses. Eight of these growers are requesting a deadline extension and two are not. The due date for submitting a request was last Dec. 18.

Appeals upcoming. On March 3, the supervisors will hear growers’ requests for an extension to install clean-air technology. They will have to weigh residents’ longstanding demands for fresh air against the demands of an industry in a down market flooded with illegal pot.

Supervisor Roy Lee, who lives in Carpinteria, is expected to set the tone.

Lee won his seat in 2024 in part because he vowed to support a mandate for scrubbers valley-wide. On Tuesday, he said that “fixing the odor issue” remains the goal, and that the board will take a “careful look” at each extension request.

“The people of Carpinteria have shown a lot of patience,” Lee said. “Probably too much patience. It’s hard for me to have sympathy for growers who are not following the rules.”

Complicating the board’s decision, several growers are proposing to install air purifiers from Texas that have been found to remove only 41 percent of the smell of pot inside a valley greenhouse, on average, county records show. The state of California is recommending against the use of such purifiers for cannabis odor control because of “safety concerns.”

“The answer has always been, for the last four years, that the Envinity machines have proven themselves,” said Lionel Neff, a board member of the Santa Barbara Coalition for Responsible Cannabis, a citizens’ group that has long advocated for tougher industry regulations. “It’s like the growers are looking for an answer that was always there …

“Everybody is very frustrated by this whole thing. The time’s up! They had a year to be in compliance, and they kept putting it off, putting it off, putting it off. It’s like we’re back to square one. They’re asking the neighbors to put up with the obnoxious odors for another year. It’s not fair.”

Odor complaints down. Cannabis is under cultivation on 115 acres at 18 greenhouse operations in the valley — about 87 football fields’ worth, just outside the city limits of Carpinteria.

In the balmy Mediterranean climate, growers control the temperature inside their greenhouses by opening scores of roof vents, allowing both hot air and the pungent smell of cannabis to escape. Residents say the smell rises during the day and settles back down in the evening.

But between Jan. 1, 2025 and Feb. 11 of this year, records show, the county received only 170 complaints about the smell of pot. Most of them came from longstanding hot spots near the following locations:

Autumn Brands at 3615 Foothill Rd., owned by Hans Brand; G&K and K&G at 3561 Foothill, owned by Graham Farrar and Kyle Kazan; La Mirada Drive, a neighborhood in the foothills near those operations; CP1 Supply Systems at 4505 Foothill, owned by Tristan Strauss, the CEO of Headwaters, a bulk cannabis supply company in California; and Valley Crest at 5980 Casitas Pass Rd., owned by Philip Fagundes of Parlier, Calif.

None of these operations are equipped with carbon scrubbers.

Residents who filed the complaints wrote that they had been awakened by the “nightly stink-o,” “foul odor” of pot; were hit with a bad smell when they opened their doors; closed all their doors and windows and still smelled pot; had trouble breathing in the morning because “the odor is super thick”; and couldn’t enjoy their homes and gardens during the day.

“I don’t take my valuable time every day to come on here and complain any more,” one resident wrote last May. “Just wanted someone to know that the odor continues to fill our homes morning and evening. I know they will have to stop this by the Fall. I suppose we will see.”

Neff said Carpinterians have largely stopped filing complaints because they thought the problem would be solved by now.

“Everyone is under the impression that the growers have either ordered or are installing scrubbers in compliance with the ordinance, and that relief is right around the corner,” he said.

To make it easier to file odor complaints and “geo-locate” them, the county has replaced its burdensome complaint system with a web-based form that allows residents to mark the precise location of the odor on a map.

The form, which is confidential, asks for the name, email address and phone number of the person making the report; the date, time, intensity and duration of the odor, and whether the person reporting it was stationary or in transit.

“A faster way”? Most of the Envinity scrubbers in valley greenhouses today were purchased by members of the Van Wingerden family, a prominent flower-growing family that has converted its greenhouses to pot. In 2022, Ed Van Wingerden and his partners paid more than $750,000 for an engineering study of the Envinity model at one of their operations.

As of 2024, Envinity scrubbers cost $22,000 each. At a recommended density of up to 10 per acre, it would cost the remaining growers in the valley up to $13 million to install them. The scrubbers incorporate five stages — two for particle filtration; one for ionization to kill pathogens; and two for carbon filtration, including one stage that uses photocatalytic oxidation.

So far, according to county planners, the greenhouse operations where growers are requesting an extension to install Envinity scrubbers are G&K and K&G on Foothill and Bronco Management, an operation that is not yet under cultivation at 3892 Via Real.

Jared Ficker, a co-founder of Axiom Advisors, a Sacramento and Santa Barbara-based cannabis and corporate consulting firm, said one client who is proposing to install Envinity scrubbers “has been in the power upgrade queue for a long time.”

“One of the problems with the Envinity is, they have a heavier power load,” Ficker said, adding that electrical upgrades require a county permit. “We applied for these last summer, and there hasn’t been a lot of action on them yet. A lot of operations are watching to see if there’s a faster way to do this. From what we hear, the Genesis is going to be more effective and can be installed more quickly.”

Texas-made tech. So far, county planners said, the operations where growers are proposing to install the air purifiers made in Texas are Autumn Brands; Valley Crest; CP1 Supply and Emmawood at 5888 Via Real, another “grow” owned by Strauss.

These devices, manufactured by Genesis Air Inc. of Lubbock, Tex. cost $9,000 each, or less than half the price of an Envinity model. Genesis products, billed as “simple, sustainable, safe solutions” for clean air, are widely used in airports, hospitals, casinos and schools — but not cannabis greenhouses.

The Genesis air purifiers rely on photocatalytic oxidation (PCO), a process in which ultraviolet light creates a chemical reaction that in turn breaks down smelly gases. They were tested during two days last July at Autumn Brands.

In a Feb. 2 advisory titled, “Air Quality and Cannabis Operations,” the Air Pollution Control District of Santa Barbara County noted that as of December 2025, the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment is recommending against the use of PCO “air cleaners” for cannabis odor reduction “due to safety concerns, namely, the potential for ozone formation and secondary, toxic chemical byproduct formation.”

If PCO devices are proposed for cannabis odor abatement, the advisory stated, the district “recommends (but does not require)” that they be equipped carbon filters.

According to county Planning & Development, the Genesis model that was tested in the valley last July was not equipped with carbon filters.

Geosyntec Consultants Inc., an engineering firm hired by Planning & Development, will review the study that was performed on the Genesis model; and county planners will look into the adequacy of the model at each location where it is proposed to be installed, said Errin Briggs, a department deputy director.

“All cannabis settings are unique and require independent review based upon their characteristics,” he said.

Brand and Strauss did not respond to a request for comment for this article. Efforts to reach Fagundes, the Valley Crest owner, at Greenbrier Holdings, his cannabis manufacturing plant in Parlier, also were unsuccessful.

Valley Crest is embroiled in a class action lawsuit that was filed by the coalition and several neighbors on Casitas Pass Road in 2023. The plaintiffs seek relief from what they describe as the “awful smells and noxious odors and chemicals that they are being assaulted with on a daily basis in their homes.” A trial date has been set for November in Santa Barbara Superior Court.

(Bronco Management, one of the largest greenhouse operations approved by the county, is not included in the scrubber totals. According to county planners, it does not yet have state licenses to cultivate cannabis. Also not included in the totals are nine active cannabis processing buildings in the valley. All of them are equipped with carbon filters.)

Coming enforcement. As of March 18, the county will start enforcing the odor thresholds that were set by the board last year for the property lines of cannabis greenhouses, county planners said. During the past year, several of them have received weekly training in the field in the use of the Nasal Ranger, a hand-held instrument that is used to sniff odors and rank their intensity.

“We wanted to make sure our staff was comfortable with the Nasal Ranger,” said Petra Leyva, a supervising planner. “Our goal was, we wanted to make sure we didn’t have someone who was over-sensitive or couldn’t smell at all.”

Meanwhile, Geosyntec has been inspecting the odor control systems in all of the valley’s cannabis operations to check that they are working as specified. At a minimum, starting March 18, these inspections will be conducted on a yearly basis, both inside the greenhouses and along the property lines, Leyva said.

Unannounced inspections will be made in response to complaints and to ensure that odor control equipment is running around the clock, she said. As of March 18, all such equipment must include run-time meters, and the data must be provided to county inspectors on request.

To initiate an inspection in response to complaints, the county must receive at least three odor complaints within a 60-day period, or five within 24 hours. Any odor that exceeds a level of “mild to transient odor” for more than three minutes at the property line will be considered a violation of the threshold set by the board.

Growers who are out of compliance will be required to hire an engineer to establish a “compliance protocol,” reviewed by the Geosyntec and county planners, with a plan for reducing the smell — including installing additional scrubbers, if necessary, Briggs said.

“I anticipate that staff will be in the field almost daily, checking on various aspects of compliance for all operators,” he said.

Melinda Burns is an investigative reporter with more than 40 years of experience covering immigration, water, science and the environment. She was previously a senior writer for the News-Press during 21 years at the paper, from 1985 to 2006.

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