As far as residential grow houses, we have been involved with them since 2007. Since that time the Building Division as inspected and disconnected power on 77 grows. We are in a "progressive" County, where the District Attorney does not prosecute, so the City had to come up with something to try and discourage the growers, because they were causing considerable problems in their neighborhood (smell, home burglaries, murders etc.). The first thing the City did was write an ordinance to limit the size of the grow. Then when we got a complaint, the police or drug task force would investigate. If they found enough evidence, they would raid the house and call us in to determine if there were any health and safety issues. Considering all of the work (electrical, mechanical, and plumbing) was done without a permit, we would have the electrical service disconnected. This had some impact on the grows, but the biggest impact came this year when the Council put on the ballot a measure to tax all homes that had excessive electrical usage. The number was a 600% over the baseline for a normal single family household. The measure passed and we found the number of housing stock with excessive use fell from 650 to less than 90 in just a few months. Now the County and another City are looking into use the same measure.
The Times-Standard
POSTED: 01/12/2014 02:41:36 AM PST | UPDATED: 13 DAYS AGO
As we've reported in today's paper, Arcata's now seen its first share of the revenue generated by Measure I, the so-called marijuana grow tax. What remains to be seen is how swiftly the new tax recoups the cost of its implementation, and whether the rest of Humboldt County will follow Arcata's lead in taxing the excess electricity usage that's a telltale sign of indoor marijuana grows.
Arcata's voters in 2012 overwhelmingly approved Measure I, which taxes residents who exceed a baseline of typical household electricity usage set by the Pacific Gas and Electric Company. Households that don't meet the medical exemptions included in the measure and exceed the baseline by 600 percent are charged an additional 45 percent of the electricity portion of a bill.
Implemented by PG&E in October of last year in exchange for $650,000, the tax has so far returned $50,000 to the city's general fund for the months of October and November.
While city officials say it's too soon to tell if the tax will collect as much revenue as initial estimates by city staff had predicted -- $1 million annually -- one thing's for certain: It's already caused a significant drop in energy usage within city limits.
Prior to the grow tax, 633 of Arcata's 9,500 residential meters exceeded the 600 percent baseline. In the first month of the tax's implementation, only 96 accounts did.
Eureka's City Council and Humboldt County's Board of Supervisors would be wise to continue their exploration of following Arcata's lead, and implementing a similar tax of their own. Arcata's experiment may succeed or fail, but it has a built-in 12-year sunset provision. In the meantime, the need to formulate a countywide response seems self-evident. All those grow houses didn't go up in smoke.
