The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to extend the county's abeyance enforcement policy.
The previous December 31, 2019 deadline is now extended which allows cannabis growers to continue to operate while their permits are being processed and approved by the county.
Some growers says if supervisors did not choose to extend the deadline, it would have forced them to operate without permits to either go out of business or operate illegally, now this decision will allow them to be in compliance.
Supervisor Lynn Compton who voted against the extension of the abeyance program says it cost San Luis Obispo County large amounts of money and is a program that's been extended one too many times.
"We would be fully permitted and we would be operating under both the county and the state standards, which have a lot of benefit. The benefits are that owner gets mitigated, that people have to work within certain boundaries and they can't go within certain setbacks of property line, everything goes through the track and trace systems both at the county level and at the state level," said Nick Andre, Natural Healing Center Chief Operating Officer.
"It's a handful of growers that fall into this category and it's kind of like no man's land. We can't police them, we can't collect taxes, there's a lot of things that we can't do. Are there issues with the county industry permits, certainly they are but the vast majority of them are not the fault of the county, the vast majority is the fault of the operators," said Lynn Compton, San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisor District 4.
More than 50 people were in attendance at Tuesday's hearing and several people spoke both for and against the extension.
Those in the cannabis industry call this vote vital to their business.
This decision by the Board of Supervisors extends the deadline for operators to attain permits to June 30, 2020.
