The Roots Battle Continues

Like his colleague, Joe Armendariz, Dennis Bozanich needs to learn the meaning of the phrase, “ad hominem attack.”

To be clear, the “fix” to which I referred in the op-ed “The Color of Money” was the one for which Mr. Bozanich was ostensibly responsible, in his former role as “Cannabis Czar/Deputy CEO.” That is: that the only location which would be considered for a dispensary in the Toro/Summerland Plan area would be Santa Claus Lane. This was announced by him at a Board of Supervisors hearing in late 2019, before the so-called community outreach in 2020, where the CEO ignored the fact that almost everyone weighed in against the site. Two adjacent sites on Santa Claus Lane were then “compared.” To no one’s surprise, one of them “won” the license. This is a prime example of the county’s use of the cannabis licensing ordinance to preempt legally required consideration of ostensibly feasible alternative sites both in the CEQA process and under the Coastal Act.

In the licensing process, the county incorrectly eliminated a C-1 zoned site in Montecito, and several in Summerland, based on their proximity to a “school.” Now, the county refuses to consider the Surf Camp, which serves flesh-and-blood children, ages 5-17, and which is right next door to the cannabis site, as a “youth center,” also a sensitive receptor under state law. That designation alone would categorically exclude the Radis/Roots site from consideration.

See you November 1.