Penalty hiked for illegal pot farming

Authorities have shut 272 such operations this year; report says there are 1,085 of them in county

San Bernardino County is hiking up the penalties for illegal commercial cannabis farms in the unincorporated areas of the nation’s largest county, including fining property owners for illegal farming taking place on their land.

The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved an ordinance to impose steep fines for illegal cannabis cultivation.

“This is not the end of this,” 1st District Supervisor Paul Cook said. “This is just the start of dealing with a huge problem.”

According to a report prepared for the board, more than 1,080 illegal cannabis farms operate in San Bernardino County, mostly in the desert.

The report blames the boom in illegal farms on the “abundant” available desert land, climate and soil conditions ideal for growing cannabis and remote locations with few neighbors. It’s a regional problem, according to the report, and includes Los Angeles, Riverside and San Diego counties.

Newly appointed San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said illegal marijuana cultivation is “probably our biggest qualityof-life problem in our county right now, particularly in our rural areas.”

“This is a large problem, when you talk about the size of our deserts, extending from the Morongo Valley, going out to Newberry Springs and, of course, out to the Phelan area and the L.A. (County) border,” Dicus told the board. “This seems to be something that Sacramento is turning a blind eye to.”

Among the problems he cited: Many of the farms are using carbofuran, an insecticide that’s illegal to use in the United States and is incredibly toxic to humans and wildlife.

“A lot of people are not going to help us,

because it’s cannabis,” Cook said. “But what they’re doing to the environment out there, it’s just wrong.”

A huge part of the blame, according to the report, is due to Proposition 64 in 2016, which legalized recreational marijuana, dropping illegal cannabis cultivation to a misdemeanor crime. Since then, the Sheriff’s Department has seized 224% more marijuana plants and 620% more firearms found while serving search warrants on suspected farms.

The county’s Marijuana Enforcement Teams have shut down 272 illegal cannabis farms in 2021 so far, according to the report. An additional 1,085 potential farms also have been identified. Authorities have made 251 arrests, including 39 felony arrests, and have seized 21,029 pounds of cannabis.

In other words, officials said, illegal cannabis cultivation is too profitable for existing misdemeanor fines to be a meaningful deterrent.

So on Tuesday, the board approved new penalties:

• Misdemeanor cultivation of less than 200 plants will come with a fine of $1,000 for the first conviction, $1,500 for the second and $3,000 for the third.

• Misdemeanor cultivation involving operation of a dispensary, delivery, manufacturing, distribution or cultivating 200 plants or more will carry a fine of $3,000 for the first conviction, $6,000 for the second and $10,000 for the third, along with up to six months in jail.

• Property owners and farm operators can be fined daily for similar amounts, up to $3,000 a day for the third citation of less than 200 plants and up to $10,000 a day for the third citation for 200 plants or more.

Going after landowners for failing to police their land or, worse, turning a blind eye to illegal activity happening there, is a strategy intended to address what San Bernardino County District Attorney Jason Anderson calls the “gaps” in criminal law created by Prop. 64.

“My office will outmaneuver the legislators in Sacramento,” Anderson told the board. “We will be more nimble and we will have a strategy that overcomes the gaps this law creates, that we knew it would create … We will be more creative on behalf of the residents of this county.”

A legislative fix may be coming in the next session in January.

Assembly Member Thurston “Smitty” Smith, R-Apple Valley, the former mayor of the High Desert city of Hesperia, plans to introduce legislation intended to crack down on illegal marijuana cultivation, county supervisors were told Tuesday.

According to Smith’s chief of staff, Dillon M. Lesovsky, several approaches to the problem currently are being evaluated.