HIGH PEAK, CA >> Pillsbury Farms just north of Potter Valley will be issued a stop work order by the Lake County staff for constructing a greenhouse, without a building permit, discovered in the course of an annual site inspection of a cannabis farm.
Operators of the Farm, John Evans, co-founder Justin Quayle cultivation manager and Skiel Laiwa, executive administrative assistant and a representative of the farm, were directed by the county Community Development Department to follow the order’s instruction after failing to obtain a permit prior to erecting the structure. “We expect them to come in to get a building permit,” Mireya Turner, community development director said. “It was cited in their annual compliance monitoring site inspection.”
Turner noted that the inspection occurred on September 1 and the county wants to work with them to come into compliance. She assured the greenhouse was the only point of the inspection that was not in compliance, and it would not qualify for a high severity code. “As soon as Pillsbury brings in their building permits (state and county) and site plans, along with an application, including the elevation (what the outside looks like) we can bring them into compliance,” Turner added. “Sometimes we can accept photographs to satisfy the elevation requirement.”
Violations included the greenhouse, which was partially caved in. The standard solution would be to demolish the structure. Turner emailed a copy of the stop work order. It requires Pillsbury Farms to abide by the corrective order within 30 days of receipt of the directive. Failure to comply, allows an enforcement official to impose a penalty for each violation pursuant of the Lake County Code, Chapter 13-13.2b in an amount not to exceed $100 for each day the first violation occurs and continues, $200 for each day the second violation of the same provision of this chapter within one year after the first and continues and $500 for each day of an additional violation of the same provision of this chapter within one year after the first violation.
However, Code Enforcement Officer Linda Rosas-Bill and was wearing a body cam and made a video of the inspection while it was in progress. Laiwa said she had not granted her consent and wondered if her rights had been violated. She explained the visit was part of her farm’s annual commercial cannabis inspections that Laiwa pays for every year. But there was an increase of fees this year compared to last year she noted. “Our first inspection fee was $760, compared to $976 that we paid out of our personal pocket, but it was already covered by the county cannabis equity grant.”
In an email to the press, Matthew Rothstein, county chief deputy administrative officer, who attributed most of the information provided to county staff, noted there were 32 cannabis businesses that had their taxes and or fees covered through the cannabis state equity grant. “Not all available funds were expended in the 2023 cycle, which ended October 31 ($1,355,637.17 unspent). The next round is active now. $836,678.29 must be expended by Oct. 31, 2024,” he said. Cannabis tax funds are allocated via Budget Unit 1072 and are separate from the general fund.
But the experience made Laiwa wonder if what took place was not an inspection but an investigation. “But when I called the Sheriff’s Office to file a police report, I didn’t think they had a good understanding of the difference between an inspection and an investigation. I asked Deputy Nakahara what (was) the difference between the terms, but he wouldn’t give an answer,” she said.
Laiwa went on to say that Deputy Nakahara said he called Deputy District Attorney Grothe Bar, and was informed, the county worker was within her scope of work to record “When I asked Deputy McKabe, he did his best to convince me (the county worker’s recording) was within their ‘scope of work.’ I submitted a public records request regarding the county’s scope of work and the county couldn’t give me the county code that allows code enforcement officials to record without permission.”
In addition, Laiwa contacted Turner at the end of October regarding the video recording as well as why when Pillsbury applied for a cannabis cultivation permit in 2019 it was misplaced by their planner, Sateur Ham who later explained she was overworked and could not keep track of the application.
It was not until 2022, when Pillsbury contacted Scot DeLeon, public works director, they were able to secure a cannabis application with one filed way back in 2020.”That was when we paid for our inspection, and they came out and we had District 3 Supervisor Ed Crandell present,” Laiwa recalled. “We satisfied all the conditions and were issued a permit in January 2023.”
Pillsbury began planting in late August 2023 after the state issued them a lake/storm alteration agreement. But they still had to get their state metric tags on all their individual plants, when state and county permits followed. “Once we got our clones off a mother plant in a nursery, we made sure our plants were pesticide free, and we could plant them in the ground,” she said.
Yet Laiwa still wanted to pursue why they were subjected to a video recording at their inspection in September and how their initial applications got misplaced. After contacting Turner’s office, they just received a reply on Nov. 12 she said. Turner replied that it was unclear why the code enforcement officer was compelled to recount (in video) Pillsbury’s annual inspection. Yet she did note that Rosas-Bill was no longer at the code enforcement office. Laiwa said they are still awaiting their work stop order for the greenhouse so they can fully comply and move forward with the cultivation of their cannabis crop.
