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Santa Barbara County deputies seize 20 tons of illegal cannabis

June 23, 2019

Law enforcement officers seized about 20 tons of illegal cannabis grown at a 60 acre cultivation site in Santa Barbara County during a four-day operation last week, the sheriff’s department said in a press release. [Cal Coast Times]

Following a two month investigation, on June 17, detectives from the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Cannabis Compliance Team executed four search warrants related to an illegal cannabis cultivation site near Buellton. The grower was allegedly operating under fraudulently obtained state licenses and suspected of selling undocumented cannabis.

Sheriff deputies along with investigators from the District Attorney’s Office, California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Army National Guard Counter Drug Task Force served search warrants in Santa Maria, San Luis Obispo County and in the 1800 block of Highway 246, just outside the Buellton City limits.

At the 187 acre Highway 246 property, just over 60 acres was used for the commercial cultivation of cannabis. It took the 35 person team four days to seize approximately 20 tons of processed cannabis and eradicate approximately 350,000 cannabis plants, several of which were nearly ready to harvest.

Tips from the public led to the raid.

The property owner has not been located or contacted at this time, according to the press release. The case will be forwarded to the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office for review of possible criminal charges.


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This all seems pretty damn fishy to me. I keep seeing the county taking out these major grows because of issues with their licenses. If someone is going to put this amount of money into a grow I doubt they would risk it for not having their paperwork in order. It’s always just before or right after harvest that they bust. I bet the real issue is that someone in government or law enforcement is not getting paid off and then turns on the grower as punishment. Another question, where does all the confiscated marijuana go? Marijuana enforcement seems like a racket to me.


-5

Due to the mild weather here on the central coast most large grows harvest plants weekly all year round, so yes, a raid is always going to happen around harvest time no matter what day of the year the raid happens.


As we have seen time and time again, greed takes over. They may have had a 1 year temporary license and then not paid for the annual one when the time came, or got a license to grow X amount of plants and vastly exceeded that number (Cookies Farm in Nipomo among many others). Each raid seem to have some validity to them or else we would be reading news articles about how the growers went to court and won millions in damages from the police for an illegal raid, but I have yet to read anything like that and there have been hundreds if not thousands of raids in California in the last 12 months and it is just the beginning of the raids according to the Governor.


1

20 tons? Greedy growers. Pathetic


4

Law enforcement seems to have a serious marijuana habit. I’ve never known it to be this addictive in anyone who merely smokes the stuff.


0

As an x D&A counselor Dept of Corr. The biggest arguments were is it or isn’t MJ addective


1

You haven’t lived until you see the annual 20 ton doobie the cops roll every year


2

“See something, say something,” worked.


0

Hmmm… Is it me or do those crops look like they are infested with botrytis? Maybe they had the cops harvest everything because it was all diseased and you couldn’t sell it?


-7

Folks,


Santa Barbara County 5th District Supervisor Steve Lavignino was one of two supervisors who crafted the marijuana ordinance in SB County, and he proceeded to take thousands of dollars in reelection campaign cash from the marijuana lobby right before crafting regulations that would allow some of the largest marijuana plots IN THE WORLD.


Lavignino’s corruption is so bad the LA Times just did a story on him, and he and the other county supervisor, Das Williams have been nicknamed ‘The Doobie Brothers’, because they drafted language that is so one-sided against existing ag growers and residential homeowners.


Steve Lavignino is not a conservative, and this recent corruption shows he is not an ethical public servant, either.


Just saying.


7

No links, so just here say?


-6

So they have the cops doing all the harvesting now? Smart. Much better than smuggling in slaves from South East Asia like they do in SLO county.


5

Can’t the grower just pay the taxes due, get the product back, and be legal? If not, why not? The only consideration in SB, or SLO, counties is taxation.


2