The Wall Street Journal - 13.09.2019

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. ** Friday, September 13, 2019 |A

CARPINTERIA, Calif.—On a

recent sunny morning in this

beach town near Santa Bar-

bara, realtor Gary Goldberg

ran into Das Williams on the

street and raised a concern: A

persistent skunky aroma had

required him to knock $18,

off the sale price of a condo.

“It smelled like marijuana,”

said Mr. Goldberg, adding that

buyers threatened to pull out

because of the odor.

Mr. Williams, a Santa Bar-

bara County supervisor who

helped craft regulations for

large cannabis farms here, as-

sured the realtor that he was

doing everything he could to

tamp down the smell. The ar-

gument over odor is part of

an acrimonious debate over

how to regulate the region’s

growing marijuana industry,

pitting farmers against some

residents.

Cities and counties across

California are grappling with

where to grow cannabis for

the nation’s largest legal mar-

ket. More than two years after

the state stopped requiring a

doctor’s note to buy the drug,

but left it up to locals to de-

cide where it should be

grown, less than half its 58

counties allow commercial

farming.

blaze.

“Initial interviews of three

crew members revealed that

no mechanical or electrical is-

sues were reported,” the re-

port said.

Only a handful of crew, in-

cluding the captain, escaped.

U.S. NEWS

The dive boat caught fire in the

middle of the night, trapping

the passengers and one crew

member, all of whom died. All

34 victims have been recov-

ered, according to the Santa

Barbara County Sheriff’s Office.

“Investigators plan to exam-

ine current regulations regard-

ing vessels of this type, year of

build, and operation; early-

warning and smoke-detection

and alarm systems; evacuation

routes; training; and current

company policies and proce-

dures,” the report said.

Investigators still don’t

know how the fire on the boat

began or if the passengers and

crew were following safety

protocols and best practices.

Investigators are trying to de-

termine whether those on

board had been given a proper

safety briefing and told how

they might escape the con-

fined bunk area with its rela-

tively small escape hatches.

NTSB officials and others

are also looking into the fire-

suppression and smoke-detec-

tor systems on board the boat,

which was built in 1981 and

predates the most-recent reg-

ulations for this type of vessel.

Federal authorities have

launched a criminal probe as

well.

—Zusha Elinson

contributed to this article.

Federal investigators re-

leased a preliminary report on

the Conception boat fire that

killed nearly three dozen peo-

ple this month off the coast of

California, and said the entire

crew was asleep when the

blaze began.

National Transportation

Safety Board officials have

said the full investigation

could take more than a year,

and preliminary findings high-

light remaining questions as

much as they provide answers

as to how the tragedy hap-

pened.

“A crew member sleeping in

the wheelhouse berths was

awakened by a noise and got

up to investigate,” the report

released Thursday said. “As

crew members awoke, the cap-

tain radioed a distress mes-

sage to the Coast Guard.”

Regulations require a crew

member on this type of boat

to be awake at all times.

A Coast Guard spokes-

woman said the boat was re-

quired to have at least one

crew member patrolling at all

times if passengers were in

their bunks. The Coast Guard

believes all crew members

were asleep.

Truth Aquatics, which owns

the Conception, declined to

comment on the matter.

A lawyer for the company’s

owner, Glen Fritzler, didn’t

comment on allegations the

crew had been sleeping but

said in a statement, “While we

don’t officially know the cause

of the fire, we do believe from

current evidence and testimo-

nials that it was not caused by

the operator, the boat or the

crew.”

The preliminary investiga-

tion provides some key details

beyond what NTSB officials

have already talked about pub-

licly in the days following the

BYBENKESLING

Crew Was Asleep on Doomed Dive Boat

Workers awoke, tried

to reach passengers as

captain radioed for help,

preliminary report finds

Source: National Transportation Safety Board, Truth Aquatics Alberto Cervantes, Vivien Ngo and Jessica Wang/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

FireatSea

Federalinvestigatorsreleaseda

preliminaryreportdetailinghow

afireaboardadivingboat

killed34of39people

thismonthoffthe

coastofCalifornia.

Here’showthe

tragedyunfolded.

Fivecrewmemberswere

asleeponthewheelhouse

deck.Onewokeupandsaw

flamescomingfrombelow.

1 Thecrewonthe

wheelhousedecktriedusinga

laddertogetdowntothemain

deck,butwhenitcaughtfire,

theyjumped.Thecaptain

radioedforhelp.

2

Thebunkroomhadtwoexits—stairsinthefrontandan

emergencyhatchlocatedaboveabunkintherear,bothleadingto

thegalley.Crewmemberstriedtoaccessthepassengersbelow

throughthegalley,butwereoverwhelmedbysmokeandjumped

overboard.

3 Thecaptainandtwocrewmembersswamtothestern,

checkedtheengineroomandsawnofire.Theyandtheothertwo

crewmembersthenfledonasmallboattoanearbyship.The

captaincontinuedtoradioforhelp,whiletwocrewmembers

wentbacktosearchforsurvivors.

4

the Act will provide much ben-

efit to Tennesseans,” U.S. Dis-

trict Judge Aleta A. Trauger

wrote in her judgment Thurs-

day, “and even less reason to

think that any benefit will

come close to outweighing the

harms to Tennesseans (and

non-Tennesseans) who merely

wish to exercise their core

constitutional rights.”

Republicans who backed

the bill said it was about

maintaining fair elections.

Soon after the bill was

signed by Republican Gov. Bill

Lee in May, civil-rights groups

sued the state alleging the

measure was unconstitutional

and it discouraged people

from helping others to sign up

to vote, especially within mi-

nority communities.

Historically, Tennessee has

one of the lowest registration

rates in the country, according

to the Massachusetts Institute

of Technology’s Election Data

+ Science Lab.

The law would have gone in

effect Oct. 1. Judge Trauger’s

injunction now puts it on

pause as the lawsuit moves

forward.

Gov. Lee declined to com-

ment Thursday. Republican

Secretary of State Tre Hargett

didn’t respond to a request to

comment.

In a March opinion piece,

Mr. Hargett said the law would

“preserve the integrity” and

security of the election prog-

ress. A last-minute surge in

voter registration in the elec-

tion last year in two counties

was costly, he wrote, with

many applications incomplete

or containing incorrect and

even false information.

Kristen Clarke, president

and executive director of the

Lawyers’ Committee for Civil

Rights Under Law, a Washing-

ton-based nonprofit that

helped file the lawsuit, said

Thursday’s decision was im-

portant because it stopped

“unnecessary burdens” on or-

ganizations focused on regis-

tering people to vote in low-

income communities across

the state.

A federal judge in Tennes-

see temporarily blocked a new

law restricting voter-registra-

tion drives in the state, saying

its “troublingly vague” provi-

sions could undermine consti-

tutional rights.

The law, passed in April by

the state’s GOP-controlled leg-

islature, would require voter-

registration campaigns to turn

in applications within 10 days

of collecting them and impose

fines on paid individuals that

submit incomplete forms.

Groups that knowingly flout

the rules could face jail time.

“There is simply no basis in

the record for concluding that

BYTALALANSARI

Voter-Registration Law Put on Hold

A worker waters plants at the Autumn Brands licensed cannabis farm in Carpinteria, Calif. The farm uses an odor-prevention system.

ROGER KISBY FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Some counties like Sonoma,

in the heart of wine country,

have limited pot farms’ size

and their proximity to residen-

tial areas. Calaveras County,

located in the Sierra Nevada

foothills, quickly permitted

hundreds of grows, then re-

versed course and banned

them. Santa Barbara rushed in

with few reservations at first

and growers here captured

886 provisional cultivation li-

censes, more than any other

county, according to the state.

Most farmers here hold multi-

ple permits to increase the

size of their operations.

California for years sup-

plied the majority of the black-

market marijuana sold in

America, with most grown in

the wooded northern part of

the state known as the Emer-

ald Triangle. The state’s legal

industry is expected to reach

$3.1 billion in sales this year,

according to a report from re-

search firms Arcview Market

Research and BDS Analytics.

Illegal sales, meanwhile, are

expected to hit $8.7 billion,

the report said.

Officials in Santa Barbara,

known for its coastal views,

affluent enclaves and wine in-

dustry, allowed large grows in

an effort to boost the local

economy, particularly aimed at

retooling wilting flower farms

in the large greenhouses clus-

tered in Carpinteria.

“Empty greenhouses mean

less taxes,” said Mr. Williams,

the supervisor. “Less property

taxes for schools.”

Entrepreneurs can open

cannabis farms of any size, in

contrast to the limits in many

other counties, and at first

were allowed to grow if they

signed an affidavit that they

had previously grown medical

cannabis.

Large cannabis grows began

popping up throughout the

county, with a particular con-

centration in Carpinteria,

where 13,000 people live next

to 28 licensed operators, ac-

cording to the county.

“That smell is in the carpet.

You can smell it on the tow-

els,” said Joan Esposito, 76,

who lives near some of the

greenhouses.

Ms. Esposito, who co-

founded a group called Con-

cerned Carpinterians, said the

county should have started

with stricter regulations, lim-

iting the size and placement of

farms. “It goes beyond smell,”

she said.

Mr. Williams acknowledged

that at the beginning there

were too few rules, but said

Santa Barbara has been clamp-

ing down by raiding opera-

tions where farmers are grow-

ing more than their share,

pushing them to adopt odor-

control systems, and setting

caps on the total acreage

where cannabis can be grown.

So far, county tax revenue—

$6 million in the first year and

about $8 million in the sec-

ond—has come in on the low

side of the county’s projec-

tions of between $5 million

and $25 million a year, he

said.

Hans Brand, a former

flower grower, said he

switched to cannabis because

cheaper flowers coming from

Latin America were making it

difficult to compete. “We were

barely staying afloat and this

way we could make some

money,” Mr. Brand said.

For the business, Autumn

Brands, Mr. Brand spent about

$100,000 on an evaporation

system that he said neutral-

izes the distinctive aroma.

“I know because I live right

here,” he said.

BYZUSHAELINSON

Fights Over Growing Marijuana Cause Stink

‘That smell is in the

carpet. You can

smell it on the

towels,’ says a local.

NewYork–700FifthAvenue&55thStreet–212.397.

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