Humboldt Supes OK More Cannabis Permit Revocations
Humboldt County’s Board of Supervisors continues to take action on unpaid cannabis excise taxes, approving a second batch of permit revocations.
Fifteen cannabis cultivation permits were revoked by supervisors at their March 18 meeting, following the 21 revocations approved the prior week.
The revocations stem from unpaid Measure S cannabis taxes, with the total debt amounting to $14 million as of October 2023, when the board directed staff to pursue payments.
Farmers had until March 31, 2024 to enter into back tax payment plans with the county and have until the end of this month to fully pay debts.
The revocations apply to permit holders who haven’t entered into payment plans and the debts include unpaid planning department fees.
Ford added that prior to revocations, permits are suspended and debtors have a chance to make payment arrangements.
But he said “in these particular cases, the permit holders have not really pushed to see this resolved.”
The next step is returning properties to their pre-cannabis condition.
“We will notify the permit holders and/or property owners at this point that there is no longer a permit on file, so the cannabis-related infrastructure needs to be removed,” said Planning Director John Ford. “It can be retained if it serves a permitted use on the property but the large greenhouses, the large amounts of irrigation tubing and things like that will largely need to go.”
During a public comment period, cannabis farmer Craig Johnson said he and others have for years been “jumping up and down saying Measure S isn’t working” and “this is really going to come to a final point in a cliff – and here we are.”
Recommending reform of Measure S due to farmers being “overburdened with fees and taxes in all different directions,” Johnson said he doesn’t have a Measure S tax debt himself but “my heart goes out to those that do and that are having their reality right outside their home change forever.”
“I feel for people,” said Board Chair Michelle Bushnell, who is a Measure S taxpayer herself.
But she noted the length of time that debtors have had to enter into payment plans and added, “This has been a hard point to get to.”
Supervisors unanimously approved the revocations.
As for the March 31 deadline for full debt payment, supervisors will consider it at their March 25 meeting, with a staff recommendation to extend the payment by six months for those who’ve paid at least of half of money owed.
Also at the meeting, supervisors approved allowing indoor cannabis cultivation on seven parcels of the Evergreen Business Park in Redway.
The allowance is applied through what’s known as a Q Combining Zone, which sets specific standards for targeted areas.
Supervisor Mike Wilson asked why the county’s only Q Zone is for the Redway business park and not others.
The only other business park in the county is adjacent to the airport in McKinleyville and Ford said the owner isn’t interested in cannabis.
He added that the Redway Q Zone has a requirement for existing power and there’s been “consultation” with the Redway Community Services District on water availability.
“So this Q Zone is taking and looking at what the community has articulated as their concerns and incorporated that into an action for the board to consider,” he said.
Bushnell said SoHum is “in a downward trend in people and opportunities and I feel this is a good improvement to that business park, which is largely empty right now.”
The indoor cannabis Q Zone was unanimously approved.
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Before sohum was so vibrant everyone remembers now we have so much more shenanigans i know its all over but god i wish we could all go back to the good ol days .
You mean the days of murder, lawlessness, coked up douchebag in giant trucks running people off the roads, and young women being exploited until they were replaced with younger women?
Yeah, tell us more about the “good ol days”.
Mostly, it depended on who you were and how you treated the world what side you saw of the cannabis grower culture. I’d say it was about 90% Little House on the Prairie and 10% Sopranos in my world. And that’s probably a little darker than it really was but the dark stands out really harshly.
ANY of the “darkness” is a result of an unregulated drug industry. And ANY of the above activities are unacceptable.
I know plenty of single mothers in the 30s and 40s who were promised everything just to be ditched with nothing for the next young girl. And guess what? He is not paying any child support because he has no income. No alimony because he refused to get married.
How many cases of this are acceptable before we call out the industry as a whole for it’s gross demeanor?
How about the generally disgusting manner in which growers, specifically SoHum douchebags, act toward everyone because they have some cash?
Then we can talk about “Murder Mountain” and the ridiculous number of people who have disappeared in these mountains.
White washing this industry is absurd and counterproductive. It is real, and these things happened. It is a fucking disgusting part of Northern California history, and we are all better off now that it is over.
And I know plenty of organizations ranging from rural health centers to credit unions to radio stations that wouldn’t exist without cannabis. Yes, there were/are assholes in the cannabis business. But I’m pretty sure they would have been assholes in whatever business they were in. But those who were good actors built back for the community with money they wouldn’t have had otherwise.
I voted for legal and I would do it again. Because illegality leads to secrets leads to corruption BUT in spite of that cannabis culture was by far a force for good in my community.
Ever think those mothers are partly to blame for having a child with a man before he married her ? It is their right their bodies after all not saying the male is not partly to blame as well however you make it sound as if they did not make discussions that they were victims . Ever hear about females attempting to trap a male into marriage or staying with them by having a kid ? Guess what it happens way more than most people wish admit . Again i am not saying this is always the case but your statement makes it sound as if every grower that broke off their relationship with a woman who had a child that might or might not have been his did so just because something younger came along and that the female played no part in how she ended up a single mother. I agree people in general are pretty shitty creatures, but we are all animals after all and as with most other creatures the males dont tend to stick around much , this marriage culture way of life is very much a religious pact that is sort of forced upon everyone as a standard as to what is right or how things should be . What of the women whom want a child but do not wish to have to deal with a man in their life ? Simply because for your view of how the world should work things are not always perfect by no means that for many others it is just as it should be
Must run with a shitty crowd!
I had a great time with good people.
Remember, like attracts like…
If you meet an asshole first thing in the morning, then again at lunch, and amazingly another that evening, guess who the asshole probably is
“But he said “in these particular cases, the permit holders have not really pushed to see this resolved.””
yeah probably because the state decided to overtax everybody involved in this to the point that nobody can actually live unless you’re a giant corporate conglomerate.
do y’all really think people could afford to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in taxes when cannabis is only like $200 a pound right now on the White market and you guys limit the amount of space people can produce cannabis on their property?
this is the biggest state tax grab I’ve ever seen my entire life.
I’m starting to think the spirit of 1776 is no longer in the American people.
County needs to put lien on the properties, collect back taxes next time sold or better take property and liquidate to recoup taxpayer funds
Sell the properties to who?
state auction to the general public, like most lien sales. i do find it curious with the’ not enough power’ in garberville/redway area , to support a hospital, but enough to approve some huge indoor grows, interesting.
Yeah that is very interesting. The county has shown a knack for botching every step of cannabis legalization so it’s not surprising that they’re just getting around to approving the possibility of more indoor in a market with limited new power access now that the market has made indoor grown with local power rates very difficult to justify.
I would encourage you to look at the market for rural humboldt properties, especially ones that may have some cannabis related liabilities attached to them. If you want the county to take these lands, just know that you’re asking for the county to hold these lands unless they’re willing to dump them for less than the taxes owed
it has been done before, and not just here, and will happen again. if was owner financed, they’ll take the hit. banks don’t usually make sizeable loans on un/under developed, or not titled and secured property. taxes are forever.
Yeah lots of these types of properties will likely sit on the county rolls for a long time if they actually put a lien on them. The market for them is minimal and there are a lot of parcels.
Think Detroit circa 2009, thousands of properties with tax bills that are higher than their market value. They don’t move until the old debt is written off or something major shifts in the local economics
“If you want the county to take these lands, just know that you’re asking for the county to hold these lands unless they’re willing to dump them for less than the taxes owed.”
That’s not quite how it works — the County can sell real property at auction if property taxes have not been paid for five years —but the County does not take title to the property.
Title stays in the name of the original owner until it sells at auction — then title transfers to the new owner — if it doesn’t sell at auction title stays in the name of the original owner and property taxes and fees and penalties keep accruing.
Lol, so much for turning them into Winery type tourist attractions. Can you imagine the environmental mitigation issues, dealing with roads, fire insurance etc.? These days getting Federal or State money to bail out looks bleak! Maybe Gates will buy them up? Country doesn’t want them.
I imagine a lot of them will sit abandoned. Some will probably be reabsorbed by timber companies once they’ve got more marketable timber and maybe some large ranchers will pick some up.
And yeah, the county sure did make sure that the idea of a winery type model for cannabis farms is basically impossible.
Wasn’t the county…pretty basic. “Build it and they will come” is an unrealistic dream in this situation. Check that… maybe put an old couch in the back of the “grow dozer” and a blue tarp canopy. You know… the Pot Farm Safari. Has potential!
Some of it will definitely sit around a while. No taxes will be generated for anything, and potential buyers will shy away if they have to drop $100-200K into a property to rehabilitate it and clear the tax burdens. You could make a deal with the county in a couple years and say “Hey, I’ll give you 1/3 of what you want, or you can let it sit and not get anything for another 5 years, let’s make a deal”.
You are going to have to deal with the owners and the neighbors of these properties as well…. Picking up an abated property is going to be a nightmare for so many reasons
Anybody with cash at the acutions, that’s who. I saw a hilltop property Ukiah a year ago go for $28K for 40 acres. Give it about a year for these to hit the tax lien auctions if no one else comes forward first. Not just weed permits either if you look outside of Humboldt. Some of those wineries aren’t doing so well either.
If the Council and the State does’nt work resonably with everyone they will get nothing.
and if they foreclose on the properties, what will they have? No one will be able to buy these properties. Why not work with the property holders to help them keep the property. we both win!
Bushnell said SoHum is “in a downward trend trend in people and opportunities and I feel this is a good improvement to that business park, which is largely empty right now.”
And the irony of that statement; does she know Redway Community Services District (RCSD) moved its office from the Business Park back into Redway?
Maybe its not a “downward trend”, maybe its the fact RCSD cannot provide sufficient water pressure during fire flows? In a 2014 Water Capacity Report, it states the following from page 13:
“The 100,000 gallon Meadows Industrial Park tank does not provide enough storage to meet the fire flow demands for the Meadows Industrial Park, and the 45 gpm Evergreen booster pumps are insufficient to provide fire flow to up to the tank. In order to meet the fire flow requirements for the Industrial Park, 80,000 gallons of additional storage would have to be added, or a fire pump would need to be installed down off Redwood Drive. The fire pump would have to be capable of pumping 1,500 gpm from the primary pressure zone up to the Industrial Park.”
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QQpxb-j26C0ToDtF1RVqJVDKFncXZ4-Y/view?usp=sharing
Since 2014 and this Report, nothing has been done to correct this fire flow deficiency.
So I don’t understand how the County and RCSD could approve 7 parcels in the Meadows Business Park for growing 5000 sq ft of indoor cannabis each, with an insufficient fire flow capacity and what is also discussed in the Report:
“It is the opinion of WWE that water treatment system is currently at capacity, and the water storage and distribution system is already struggling to meet the demands of existing connections. These issues should be addressed before substantial additional service connections are made.”
Maybe if RCSD Board Chair (Art McClure) and GM (Cody Cox) would stop having private meetings with the County and more discussions in public Board meetings, they would do the right thing and stop being intimidated to do only what the County wants and only represent the Redway ratepayers…
What about that donation to HELP’ ON THE WAY that you said you were going to give.
your always here to say bulls__t about what they are doing and who they are,[edit]
???
The article states: “He added that the Redway Q Zone has a requirement for existing power and there’s been “consultation” with the Redway Community Services District on water availability.”
As I point out, the “consultation” with RCSD was all made in private and what was not made public, the Business Park has “insufficient” water pressure to provide fire flow, until I got a copy of the Report. Why would you rezone a business park to grow 35,000 sq ft of indoor cannabis without adequate water fire flow for those 7 building?
Now, what are you talking about?
11 years is an awful long time to keep punting an issue down the road. I mean, society has built 100+ story buildings and thousands of things orbiting the earth yet this group can’t fix a water issue? Someone isn’t pushing through the roadblocks very fast.
For decades both the Garberville Sanitary District (GSD) and Redway Community Services District (RCSD) have had major old infrastructure problems from leaking water storage tanks to leaking raw sewer into the South Fork Eel River and in all cases, it has taken decades to repair and replace almost everything they have been using since the 1930’s.
As for the Meadows Business Park, that project started out to be a private subdivision, with its own private water system and sewer treatment plant. However, by 1993, Wallen & Johnson were not allowed to have there own onsite sewer treatment plant and it would be piped over to RCSD for processing. However, it was Wallen & Johnson who provided the water and water system infrastructure used at the Business Park and that same water system infrastructure is being used today was purchased by RCSD in 1998. And at some point started to provide water to the Business Park. Since 1998, RCSD has never updated that water system that was created before 1993.
So to answer your question, its only been 11 years since the Business Park has had “insufficient” water pressure to provide fire flow as stated in the Report Its been 11 years since it was all included in that 2014 Report. And I’m sure it will take another 11 years for RCSD to do anything about it. Nothing has changed since 1993…
Listening to anything Michelle Bushnell says about anything at all will only continue the “downward trend”…
The fact is, SoHum is fucked, and the Supervisors have little effect, except to make things worse…
The hospital will continue, on Federal Grants and SS/Medicaid, whether ot not ground is ever broken. Remember the tax tacked onto the Property Tax, although reassessments will lower their general fund income…
The hospital mainly survives, at this point, by the ER, the SNF and the Pharmacy…
Matt and Kent will keep laughing to the bank, and you will receive ineffective and understaffed services, but a “new hospital” is doubtful, in any case…
I want to see the legal growers hold there own Humboldt tea party. Go throw it all in the bay instead of letting to G-Man tax it. But then again that would take cajones.
That’ll show em! They can load it on the Kinetic Art Race amphibious vehicles and sink em, blocking the Bay.
When will the Gman enforce the laws? The black market is alive and well.
The black market is significantly smaller than it was a decade ago
Problem is that the gman taxes weed before you even plant it.
What are they gonna do? Throw their whole property in the bay?
It’s symbolism. Also it would be pollution and littering.
I like the moving to Iowa idea being tossed around. Kinda like a reverse dustbowl migration.
Yeah, a lot of CA folks have relocated to Texas in that time. San Antonio in particular where I’m told companies there have been actively poaching high tech and medical people from CA. Idaho, OK, OR too. Iowa might be a stretch. I do know of some Humboldt people that up and left for TN. Everybody has their reasons, but there’s more than a few few Humco folks that have vacated.
For the ones that haven’t left and are looking to move… I suggest you contact Gov. Gavin and Nancy Pelosi. I suggest this because you probably voted for them (be sure to put that on your application) – and there are always jobs pruning grape vines at their Vineyards. You must be prepared to take a pay cut. Like a massive pay cut.
Every Humboldt grower should just move to a state like Tennessee or North Carolina and grow “THCA hemp”
$14 million as of October 2023
What a clusterfuck the BOS has made of this. They should never have let it go for so long.
$$$$$$$$$
That money is probably all spent on credit too. IDIOTS!
It’s easier to be a black market grower these days. The legal guys have tax about 100 dollars a pound. These supervisors show exactly how ignorant they are . Nothing but stupidity ever since their milking asses got involved. 25 years of it, like I said before , they are monkeys trying to f##k a football. ITS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
It’s amazing that california has no concept of supply and demand.
Pretty sure Pot Growers in Humboldt County have no idea of supply and demand.
Along with their trusty sidekick, John Ford, The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors, (aka “The Gang of Five”), are revoking multiple cannabis permits, and granting multiple industrial cannabis permits, at the same meeting…
You can’t make this shit up, folks…
What could possibly go wrong…???
Will the “Gang of Five” EVER recognize the error of their ways…???
Oh look, the “I am just a farmer and a business man” growers cannot actually sustain a business when expected to pay taxes and obtain permits like an actual business.
Cry me a river.
Time to acquire a skill, or resume their education, and get a real job!!
Just a reminder that Measure S taxes are not required of anyone else but Cannabis growers. They were required whether one grew or not (When has anyone else have to pay a tax whether it sold or not let alone whether they created the product or not.) Also because cannabis is federally illegal one can’t deduct business expenses. In addition the cost of even a cannabis bank account can be thousands of dollars compared to about $100 for any other business. These are just off the top of my head. Oh, right, when another business gets permits those are set prices but a cannabis farm got charged for a visit to their farm every year (Ask a rancher how often someone from the government visits their hay farm). And the prices for those visits weren’t predictable. They fluctuated. Why? I never figured it out. Also cannabis was a new legal business and no agency in government was consistent with another on requirements. And even consultants paid to understand the laws struggled so a farmer would often pay to do one thing only to learn it must be done another way. In addition, damn if some of those folks in government agencies didn’t hate growers so anything punitive that could be assessed was.
The Humboldt County Ag department was a shining example of how to try and work with the grower to understand the rules and succeed. The other departments…not so much. And I know that I met plenty of kind RHBB fans in the government who did help. But my neighbors didn’t have that and suffered even worse than we did.
“Ask a rancher how often someone from the government visits their hay farm”
About this side of never, really. Not unless you put up a new barn, drill a new well or there’s a fire. More taxes get paid on the fuel and equipment than anything.
“Measure S taxes are not required of anyone else but Cannabis growers. They were required whether one grew or not”
-Kym Kemp-
_______________________________
That really should have been a deal breaker for everyone…
I’m really surprised that wasn’t a deal breaker for more, if not all, people interested in getting permitted, especially since the price was already in a tailspin…
But maybe some of them weren’t as totally committed as others, to paying the tax in perpetuity, if the venture didn’t pan out, or pencil out, or maybe at all…
I also wonder how many, if any, of the people that tried to work with the County to get a cannabis permit, had ever previously interacted with the Planning Department of the County of Humboldt, trying to get a permit of ANY kind…???
If you don’t mind me asking, had you…???
(I have.)
I would guess that either you hadn’t, or that you had a much less terrible experience with them than I had…
It’s my understanding that the measure S taxes the were supposedly never going to change, have been reduced by 90% for the last year…
Hopefully, that will help…
https://mjbizdaily.com/hundreds-of-humboldt-county-marijuana-farmers-expected-to-lose-licenses-over-tax-debt/
“More than eight years ago, Humboldt County voters approved Measure S, which created the following three-tiered cannabis cultivation tax structure:
$1 per square foot for outdoor grows.
$2 per square foot for mixed-light grows.
$3 per square foot for indoor grows.”…
“For the past year, the excise tax was set at 10 cents per square foot for outdoor, 20 cents per square foot for mixed-light and 30 cents per square foot for indoor cultivation.”
This stuff is unbelievable Kym. Sounds like it is not going to get any better anytime soon either. Broken Thinkers.
Like I said, time for growers to grow up and get real jobs like the rest of us.
The tax free ride is over.
I find it hilarious. Especially considering the number of growers who told me things like “I pay tax and sales tax, so I dont have to pay income tax!!” Right, because the rest of us dont pay gas and sales tax. Oh wait…throw in the irony that they would not pay use taxes if they were in business as they would pass those costs on to the buyer.
In the meantime, they are also milking welfare, foodstamps, and other low incomes services because they are committing tax fraud.
Yep, time to grow up scumbags. You created this problem with decades of greed, fraud, and criminal behavior. Time to pay up!!
Are there bad actors? Yes. But the growers I know are in general members of fire departments, generous at school bake sales, pay taxes (not all that they would have had to if they were in the legal world but still substantial), etc. I’m sorry your experience has been different.
“Just a reminder that Measure S taxes are not required of anyone else but Cannabis growers.”
How long will we all keep hearing that line? The horse is dead, need to get off Kym. So tell me, how much of that Measure S tax has been paid and at what discounted rate?
I don’t remember any growers complaining about the cost of Measure S tax in the beginning, I guess more people should have remembered the rules of passing Go in Monopoly…
Ed, I’m laying out facts as I know them. I feel like you are asking me to pretend that legal cannabis growers face the same hurdles as other businesses which isn’t true. You don’t like my perspective then refute the points I make. But here’s Investopedia talking about the hurdles that cannabis business across the country (who don’t have Measure S taxes to deal with as they are only in Humboldt County) face. https://www.investopedia.com/challenges-for-the-cannabis-industry-8771674?utm_source=chatgpt.com
You don’t remember anyone complaining about Measure S taxes? Do you even remember Ed Denson’s 2018 lawsuit? And here’s just one of the many comments on my site against it: https://kymkemp.com/2016/08/23/weed-chopping-service-headed-east-on-hwy-36/#comment-331020
As to “how much of that Measure S tax has been paid and at what discounted rate?” Off the top of my head I don’t know BUT as there was quite a bit over 1000 cultivation permits and quite a bit less than 100 cultivation permits are currently dealing with revocation of their permits, we can likely assume most folks are paid up or are paying up on their taxes.
If you don’t remember growers complaining about the cost of measure S from the moment it was proposed that is only evidence that you weren’t paying any attention. I can’t think of a single person in the industry that I know that wasn’t complaining about the idea of a tax levied on hypothetical production from the very beginning.
And there’s also the bizarre instance of governmental malice disguised as ineptitude where the measure that was on the ballots was specifically for a tax to be levied biennially (once every 2 years) but after it passed the county claimed that was just a typo and the tax was actually to be levied biannually (twice a year). So they increased the proposed tax rate by 4x by claiming a “typo” that materially changed the proposal was no big deal and could be “corrected” to the rate they wanted.
However, as per John Ford:
“There have been a total of 2125 cultivation permits and 309 total cannabis [related] permits submitted to date… 1068 cultivation permits have been approved, 657 cultivation permits have been denied or withdrawn … and there are still 400 permits that are pending.”
https://kymkemp.com/2024/05/04/humboldt-county-provides-key-cannabis-data-on-cultivation-permits-watershed-capacities-and-tax-challenges/
So what you and Kym are saying, even though people opposed Measure S tax, they still went ahead and got their permits anyway? My point was, legal growers knew what they were getting into with Measure S tax when they got their permits. It seems to me, people stepping out of the illegal market into the legal market had no clue of the business, financial literacy, strategic thinking, problem-solving, and effective communication.
so they remove the cannabis permit for the property . Better money using the same structures to grow other crops that have higher value . If they revoke the permit for cannabis , but the lights hoops water pumps tarps are still in use for other types of farming , how can they demand the removal of such ? Farming any other crop does not require permits there by excluding the county from having a say in how it is farmed and what items are used to do so . Is the county going to deduct the value of these structures from the unpaid tax amount ? Or just how is that going to work ? Seems like a massive waste of resources all while claiming to be environmentally forward . Again these folks are blinded by the “green” or environmental crap pitched to solve all their money problems to save a planet by you can not and never will be able to buy or consume your way to a cleaner or greener planet. Old timers with their old tractors that leak and burn oil their junk piles of old metal this and that where they go first to find what they can use or make work , the ones that use their old oil on their driveways and fence posts are far more environmentally aware and forward then the current yuppie/ hippie wanna be types in their ev’s that need all of these resources to be set up in place by fossil fuel powered industrially produced in third world countries where people are abused mistreated and human life has less value than a pair of shoes , shipped several times around the world on massive ships that burn massive amounts of the dirtiest of fossil fuels and when the 5 to 10 year life cycles are up shipped back to these third world countries to leach and pollute and harm the survivors of the first rounds of destruction , all while generating 100’s of billions of profits all for the exact same mega wealthy people who were making less with traditional ways of doing things , but hey man we are saving the planet look how cool my car looks while it is sitting at a Starbucks parking lot while it is charging i am drinking over prices coffee and shopping at fancy designer outlet stores to keep my limited mind focused on consuming instead of how small minded humans in general are.