Californians Are Outraged By ‘Dead Skunk’ Stench From Marijuana Farms
The New York Times reported that California locals are getting a bit testy over the smell of marijuana from the surrounding marijuana farms. They are saying the stench is similar to a freshly deceased skunk, or at least the smell of skunk spray. Some are stating that the stink is so pungent that having to deal with it is “brutal.”
Last year, the Los Angeles Times released an article stating that California had so much pot that it was hindering on “too much,” noting that “growers [wouldn’t] be able to export the surplus.” The updated figures on that show a boom in the California marijuana industry, but the copious marijuana farms have now led locals to hold their noses, it seems.
One resident, Mike Wondolowski, lives a half mile away from several greenhouses that were originally built for the growth of daisies and chrysanthemums. The greenhouses now play host to thousands of marijuana plants since the legalization of recreational cannabis in California this past January.
“If someone is saying, ‘Is it really that bad?’ I’ll go find a bunch of skunks and every evening I’ll put them outside your window. It’s just brutal.”
Other residents of Sonoma County, which is located just north of San Francisco, are actually going so far as to sue in an effort to ban cannabis operations from their neighborhoods. A county even further north, in fact, succeeded in creating banned zones for cannabis cultivation. The Sheriff’s deputy in Mendocino County cited the stench as the number one complaint coming into the Sheriff’s office.
These, of course, are not the only counties outranged and attempting to confront the problem. In Santa Barbara County, cannabis growers are dealing with angry neighbors. This has led the growers to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars installing odor-control systems, cites the New York Times. These systems were actually created to control the smells from garbage dumps.
Another resident of California, living in Sebastopol, told reporters that the smell is “beyond anything you would imagine.” Grace Guthrie’s home is on the site of an apple orchard and apparently close by a marijuana farm, as her direct neighbors grow pot commercially. She said that when the smell peaks, she and her spouse even have to resort to wearing respirators meant to handle dangerous chemicals.
“It’s as if a skunk, or multiple skunks in a family, were living under our house. It doesn’t dissipate…I can’t be outside more than 30 minutes.The windows are constantly closed. We are trapped inside. There’s no escape.”
