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Sutter County supervisors adopt ordinance banning industrial hemp cultivation countywide
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Summary
After a public hearing and two public speakers, the Sutter County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to adopt an ordinance that will prohibit industrial hemp cultivation and processing in unincorporated Sutter County; staff cited prior moratoria, documented service calls, and a local history of cultivation in recommending the ban.
The Sutter County Board of Supervisors on a unanimous roll-call vote adopted an ordinance to prohibit the cultivation and processing of industrial hemp in unincorporated county areas.
Development Services staff (identified in the staff report as Lehi) told the board the action follows earlier interim moratoria and subsequent ordinances and recommended adopting a countywide prohibition. Staff said the county’s agricultural commissioner had documented roughly 500 acres and about 30 greenhouses of hemp cultivation and that the sheriff’s office had recorded about 200 service calls related to hemp in recent years. Staff said the ordinance would be exempt from CEQA as presented and described a publication and effective‑date schedule consistent with the text and adoption timeline in the staff report.
Two members of the public spoke during the hearing. Barbara LaVake, speaking on behalf of local growers, thanked the board and county staff for their earlier work to authorize limited cultivation and said growers appreciated the prior ordinance work. Tony Farley opposed hemp cultivation and asserted public‑safety concerns, saying in part, “Hemp is really hemp as a drug is prohibited under federal law,” and described incidents he said involved deputies near hemp operations; the board did not record a formal response to his assertions on the record.
After closing the public hearing the board moved to adopt the ordinance. The clerk recorded a unanimous roll‑call vote in which the supervisors answered “aye.” The ordinance will be published and take effect according to the schedule in the staff report (publication 15 days after adoption and effect 30 days thereafter, per staff description).
The board’s action follows prior, temporary measures: staff told the panel that the county enacted an interim urgency ordinance in December and updated it in January and April, and that the ordinance before the board would remove the ability to cultivate or process hemp County‑wide. The staff report included a summary of state law and local ordinance history and recommended the change based on the program chronology and the department’s analyses. No appellate or legal challenges were presented during the hearing; the record shows no written or oral legal objections on this agenda item.
The board moved on to subsequent agenda items after the vote.
