Red Bluff >> The Tehama County Board of Supervisors adopted an urgency ordinance Tuesday banning the outdoor cultivation of marijuana, but offered a one-year reprieve from the new outbuilding requirement to growers who have been complying with the county’s regulations.

The ordinance, which takes effect immediately, requires all grows to occur inside a permitted detached structure and bans any grows inside buildings that are used for human occupancy. The ordinance also creates a new process to schedule more timely administrative hearings.

As a concession to growers who may have already begun their spring grows or purchased materials, the board added a clause that any cultivation that is in full compliance with the previous county code as of April 1 would not be required to grow in an outbuilding until 2016.

Supervisor Candy Carlson was the lone vote against the ordinance, which required four-fifths passage to be adopted immediately.

Carlson said she opposed the ordinance being listed as an urgency ordinance and wanted a lengthier process. She said the other board members were possibly abusing their power and the focus should be on the large-scale illegal grows.

Carlson’s sentiments echoed those of at least half the room.

Many of those speaking in opposition to the ordinance cited the high costs of constructing a building and said the stricter rules would deprive them of their medicine. They also questioned the county’s ability to enforce the rules already in place and the role alcohol plays in the county’s culture.

Some went further and accused the board members of abusing civil rights, comparing their cause to that of ethnic discrimination.

There was also staunch support for the ordinance from property owners in the Rancho Tehama Reserve and northwest Red Bluff areas.

Residents from those areas spoke about their communities being threatened by an escalation of illegal activity, odor and noise pollution and the devaluing of their property values.

The ordinance also earned the Tehama County Cattlemen’s Association’s endorsement.

“We have seen that the growing in our rural area has become a danger to the ranchers, it’s become a danger to the landowners, it’s a danger to public and private use in general,” President Steve McCarthy said.

Supervisor Bob Williams, who sits on the Marijuana Cultivation Review Ad Hoc Committee with Supervisor Steve Chamblin, said previous county codes have been abused by growers not complying with the set regulations.

He said the urgency ordinance came about after Shasta and Butte counties strengthened their own ordinances and there was increased interest among growers in pursuing property in Tehama County.

“This is not a debate about the values of medical marijuana,” Williams said. “This is a discussion about the proliferation of gardens in Tehama County and the negative effects it’s having on the neighbors and neighborhoods out there.”