Now that local and state authorities have provisionally licensed about 1,500 legal cannabis farms statewide, they’re stepping up enforcement actions against farmers growing without a permit. County officials are doing it not with SWAT team raids, but by enforcing a laundry list of civil codes. And it’s having an effect. Civil code enforcement is decimating California’s legacy cannabis growers like criminal prohibition never could.
Fines of $10,000 per day, per violation—maxing out at $900,000, followed by property liens and forfeiture—have replaced traditional fears of a sheriff’s raid in Humboldt this summer.
Officials tell Leafly the Humboldt County Planning and Building Department has sent out 148 cannabis-related “Notices to Abate” to property owners so far in 2019. The county sent 597 abatement notices in 2018.
Recipients have ten days to remove their plants or they face record fines—far higher than monetary penalties enacted against any other business type. If you chop down your plants the same day you get the notice, you face a minimum $10,000 fine on your property. If you don’t, fines can run up to 90 days, totaling $900,000, followed by a county collection action, and potential loss of the property.