April 2nd 2025 Newsletter - Workshop. Hold the supervisors to their word. Make Neighborhood compatibility top priority

Supervisors Made Neighborhood Compatibility a Top Priority – They Need to Make Permit Sonoma Follow Their Orders and Make It the #1 Priority at the Cannabis Workshop

The Board of Supervisors will conduct a two-hour “workshop” on the upcoming changes to the County’s Cannabis Ordinance on Tuesday, April 15. Two years ago, the Supervisors told Permit Sonoma that a primary goal of the Cannabis Program Update (page 4) is to “further enhance neighborhood compatibility and environmental protections . . .”The question is, why is Permit Sonoma ignoring the Supervisors’ explicit direction and, instead, suggesting rules that would make life even more difficult for rural residents faced with neighboring cannabis grows? At the Workshop, the Supervisors should make Permit Sonoma answer this question and its apparent defiance of the Supervisors’ directive.Here are examples of Permit Sonoma’s confounding proposals:

• No consideration of Exclusion Zones or Rural Neighborhood Enclaves, where cultivation and other cannabis activities are forbidden, despite explicitly being told to include those programs.
• Reducing minimum lot size for cultivation from 10 acres to 5 acres.
• Insufficient setbacks for cultivation, forcing neighbors in their homes to breath the skunk smell which includes the carcinogen, Beta-Myrcene. (Their proposal is to reduce setbacks to 100ft from your home.)
• Allowing “crop swaps” so that a field of grapes can be swapped to cannabis without environmental review or neighborhood input.
• Defining cannabis as “controlled agriculture,” contrary to State law that says cannabis is not agriculture in any way, shape, or form.
• Allowing retail sales and consumption at “farm stands” in rural areas, attracting crime and encouraging stoned driving.
• Allowing events, sales, and consumption on rural parcels 104 days per year.
• Allowing locations that cannot meet new restrictions to get permits and be grandfathered.
• Allowing manufacturing on parcels zoned agriculture and rural resources development.
• Removing expiration dates for cannabis permits so they last forever.

Taxpayers are now subsidizing a dying industry. Why do the Supervisors do what the cannabis industry tells them to do?Do Supervisors think we should have to move to another county or state to avoid breathing a carcinogen in our homes and yards?Do Supervisors care to resolve the plague of ill feelings and resentment that cannabis activity has caused in rural Sonoma County or would they rather sit by and let the hostilities continue?

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

If you are concerned about neighborhood compatibility, phone the Supervisors switchboard (707-565-2241) and/or email (see addresses below) and tell the Supervisors you want the revised cannabis ordinance to protect neighborhoods and require that cannabis be grown only indoors with carbon filter systems. Your family’s health is more important than catering to a failing and harmful commercial industry.

1. Become fully aware of the cannabis ordinance changes at the County’s website that impact your property;
2. Visit Neighborhood Coalition Sonoma County to learn more ways you can get involved and help protect your neighborhood
3. Make a donation You can donate online , or you can mail a check to:
   
   Sonoma Neighborhood Coalition
   PO Box 1229
   Sebastopol, CA 95473
   

Our campaign to preserve what we all hold near and dear needs your support. Your tax-deductible donation will fund technical experts and our legal team that are critical to our effort to require the County to protect our environment, children, and the health and safety of our neighborhoods.

The Neighborhood Coalition is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, volunteer-based, dedicated to advocating for proper cannabis and land-use policies that benefit the community. All donations support these efforts.

Thank you for your support and donation.
The Neighborhood Coalition team


Board of Supervisor’s emails
1st District:
Rebecca Hermosillo
Rebecca.Hermosillo@sonoma-county.org

2nd District:
David Rabbitt
David.Rabbitt@sonoma-county.org

3rd District:
Chris Coursey
district3@sonoma-county.org

4th District:
James Gore
District4@sonoma-county.org

5th District:
Lynda Hopkins
Lynda.Hopkins@sonoma-county.org

Please send a copy of your letter to sonomaneighborhoodcoalition@gmail.com

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