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Butte County Supervisors Tighten Screws On Pot Growers

Rusty Blazenhoff
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http://bit.ly/1PKK2mI

Despite earnest pleas from some, Butte County officials further tightened the county’s restrictions on marijuana cultivation Tuesday, effectively hiking fines and streamlining the process for placing a lien on property.

Drafted by the county’s attorney, the changes were billed as small tweaks to a county ordinance aimed at reducing enforcement costs and further deterring illegal grows.

Tim Snellings directs Butte County’s Department of Development Services.

“People I think roll the dice in a lot of ways about whether they were going to get a complaint and whether we would come out there and whether we’d have the resources to see it through to achieve compliance,” Snellings said.

Compliance, however, is complicated. The many-faceted ordinance regulates just about every aspect of growing medical marijuana, from the size of plots and distances from property lines, to the height and materials used in approved fencing.

The changes approved Tuesday change how violators will be billed and doubles fines to $1,000 a day.

More than a dozen members of the public pleaded with the board for a different outcome. Several people with severe health problems, senior citizens among them, said cannabis had greatly helped and proved far superior to prescription pain medicine. A few others claimed that crimping the local supply would only create a lucrative market for drug cartels to build clandestine grows on public lands.

Still others praised the board’s actions and urged a tougher line, saying larger grows attract a criminal element and make neighborhoods unsafe, especially in rural foothill areas of the county.

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