{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"KZYX News","title":"Covelo residents call for cannabis enforcement","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":388,"description":"September 14, 2021 — The Board of Supervisors is set to discuss the referendum to repeal the new cannabis ordinance today. Petitioners gathered a qualifying number of signatures, which means the board can either repeal the ordinance themselves, or submit the decision to the voters for a special election. \r\n\r\nGrowers who struggled to get licensed under the previous ordinance (Chapter 10a17 of the county code) have submitted several rounds of paperwork. In some cases, they’ve paid tens of thousands of dollars to bring their properties into compliance with evolving regulations. Now they’re being told that the old county ordinance provides no hope of legalization under state law. Advocates fear that, without the new ordinance, which aligns with state requirements, the local legal cannabis industry will collapse.\r\n\r\nBut the promise of legalization, set in motion five years ago by 10a17, hasn’t materialized for non-growers either. What has proliferated are acres of plastic hoop houses, imported soil, water trucks, and violent crime. The failure to curtail flagrantly illegal activity has led to widespread skepticism about the county’s ability to enforce any ordinance.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nI drove out to Covelo a few days ago. While I was driving around slowly looking for the addresses of people I was supposed to meet, I saw so many large grows I literally lost count. And I learned in a hurry to stick to my side of the narrow, winding roads. Even on Sunday, the wide heavy water trucks are underway. One man I spoke with said that sometimes, he’ll look out the door of his home by the river and calculate how much water is going by.\r\n\r\nBy the time I arrived, around 9:30 in the morning, he said he had already seen ten trucks hauling 2,000 gallons of water each, and another ten trucks hauling 4,000 gallons each. “So there’s 60,000 a day, right there,” he concluded. I told him what I had seen as I drove through town, and he said, “out here it’s even worse. The abuses are even worse, because...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/xZpAumwbhFUpJUYcwaQ1-q6snzOyqAm13l7cW6AWPCM/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9mMzkz/NjAwNjc2OWMyZmFk/YWY2YTdmYjI5M2Mz/YWMxNy5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}