Brentwood, California officials are fed up with the uptick in home cultivation violations and did something about it.

On July 12, the Brentwood City Council intensified the rules on the home cultivation of cannabis—taking the rules beyond the legal six-plant limit inside a personal residence. Administrative citations may be issued—per plant—for any plants that are grown beyond the legal limit.

The measure was approved by the Brentwood City Council by a 4-0 vote, with Vice Mayor Johnny Rodriguez absent.

Residents should be careful about considering how many plants to grow at home. A $100 citation will be issued for the first violation, $200 for the second violation, and $500 for the third and subsequent violation. What it means is that now each plant will be considered a separate violation.

According to Code Enforcement Supervisor Roberta Portillo-Bienemann, the city has seen an uptick in cannabis cultivation violations. The new rules would give code enforcement agents additional tools to fight illegal home cultivation, putting a bit more pressure on residents who are considering defying the rules.

Typical illegal grow operations have up to 10 violations, Portillo-Bienemann said, but the new rules would add more violations, depending on the number of plants that are found by code enforcement.

Portillo-Bienemann said it usually gives the offender five to seven days to appeal the citation, however the city could issue fines per plant, per day.

“In order to give an individual their due process, right, and their ability to appeal that citation, if they choose to do so, we issue the administrative fines on a weekly basis,” she told the Santa Cruz Sentinel. “It is hoped these revisions will increase the city’s code enforcement capabilities and deter illegal marijuana cultivation.’’

But next door in Antioch, California, the police say there’s no actual problem taking place—at least not in their city.

Antioch Interim Police Chief Steve Ford said that in his city, they haven’t seen any grow houses in the last year, however at least one illegal warehouse grow operation was discovered months ago and punished by code enforcement.

“As crazy as it sounds, I’d like to think that that [the availability of dispensaries] has helped to mitigate the need for people to want to try and erect a weed house or weed grow because they don’t have to do that,” Ford told the Santa Cruz Sentinel.

Brentwood has regulated home cultivation since 2017, when it incorporated California law into its municipal code to reflect Proposition 64. City leaders are mostly worried about large-scale operations, and they say that the crop sizes reach the hundreds or thousands, and they believe it creates health and safety risks.

Brentwood Mayor Joel Bryant said he supported the new home cultivation rules.

“Having seen some of these grow houses in our community, not only is there immediate danger to the neighboring houses of fire and there are health concerns from the mold, but there also have been some violent interactions from criminal activity,” Bryant stated. “Not only from the growers but people that are criminals that found out that that grow house was there.”

Councilwoman Susannah Meyer approved the measure, saying that the enhanced rules don’t impede anyone’s rights to consume cannabis.

Some residents also agreed with the enhanced violations, saying that the issue is about protecting their property values.

Assuming you’re staying within the legal limit in your respective city, and assuming your state allows it, High Times provides guidelines, focusing on the ins and outs of growing cannabis at home.

The cannabis data collection company Headset released its latest report on July 13, which covers budtender/employee turnover rates in cannabis dispensaries.

Headset calls cannabis budtenders the “heart and soul of the industry,” because they are essentially ambassadors for the plant and the industry. “Because of their extreme importance, budtender hiring, onboarding, and management is one of the most crucial tasks in any cannabis retail operation,” Headset writes in its introduction. “One of the great challenges of managing budtenders, or staff in any business, is employee turnover. Turnover is often unavoidable and always costly, so it’s essential to optimize the employee hiring and managing process wherever possible. In this report, we explore budtender turnover in the US and Canada to get an understanding of what is and isn’t normal when it comes to budtender turnover.”

The report analyzes information collected between June 2021 through May 2022, with a search in Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon and Washington state, as well as the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Ontario, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan.

For both the U.S. and Canada, the split between senior employees and new employees is nearly the same. In the U.S., 40.6% are employees that were hired more than 12 months ago, with 59.4% being considered as new hires. In Canada, the split between 12 month employees and new hires is 40.1% and 59.9% respectively.

The percentages begin to differ when reviewing the percentages of employees who stay at cannabis dispensaries versus those who leave before the 12-month mark. In the U.S., 45.4% continued working after one year, but 54.6% left, and in Canada, 43.6% stay on while 56.4% quit.

Further data shows that ~16% of employees in both the U.S. and Canada continued to work at their job, but only ~24% chose to leave. The percentage in relation to new hires choosing to stay or leave is much higher—29.3% and 30.1% in the U.S. 27.3% and 32.5% in Canada.

There are many reasons that could influence budtenders to leave their jobs, and in most cases the data is similar in the markets used for analysis. “Retailers in Illinois, for example, seem to be better than average at retaining more experienced staff members for more than one year with 55% of employees hired more than one year ago,” the report states. “Conversely, retailers in Colorado and Oregon tend to have far lower retention, both with more than a third of budtenders starting and ending their employment in the past 12 months. In Canada, Alberta is a bit of an enigma with retailers tending to have slightly better retention among new employees but having lost a larger amount of more tenured employees than in other Canadian provinces.”

The report also shares that 23% of new hires in the U.S. and 24% in Canada leave before the first 30 days of their employment, which is likely attributed to an “efficient and effect new hire onboarding process.”

However, those who perform well in sales are more likely to continue working. “The better performing the budtender is, the more likely they are to continue working,” Headset concludes. “This could be simply because it feels good to do well at a job and so it’s natural to want to continue. However, budtending is still a tip-driven position in many markets and being a top performer could also mean an employee might be bringing home more total income than his or her coworkers.”

Brittney Griner’s trial on cannabis possession charges continued in Russia on Friday, with the WNBA star’s attorneys telling the court that she has a doctor’s recommendation to use medical pot. Griner was arrested at an airport near Moscow in February after customs agents reportedly found vape cartridges containing less than one gram of cannabis oil in her luggage as she made her way through a security checkpoint. If convicted, she faces up to 10 years in prison.

At a hearing on Friday, her defense team submitted evidence that could elicit leniency from the court, including documentation that she has a doctor’s recommendation to use medical cannabis in the United States. The defense also submitted evidence that Griner had recently passed an anti-doping drug screening, with no prohibited substances found in her system.

“The defense today provided written evidence, including character materials, medical documents and tax returns,” Griner’s lawyer, Maria Blagovolina, told Reuters.

“Among the medical documents is a doctor’s note for the substance that Brittney Griner inadvertently left among her belongings when crossing the border,” she said.

Griner’s lawyers also noted that the recommendation to use cannabis medicinally had been sanctioned by the state government in Arizona, where she is the star center for the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury.

“The attending physician gave Brittney recommendations for the use of medical cannabis,” Blagovolina added. “The permission was issued on behalf of the Arizona Department of Health.”

Griner’s Plea

Griner’s trial began on July 1 in a courtroom in Khimki, a suburb of Moscow where the airport is located. She pleaded guilty on July 7 to the charges she faces, although she told the court that she did not intend to commit a crime and that she had packed for her trip quickly, unaware that the vape cartridges were in her luggage. While Griner has already pleaded guilty, her trial continues as the court considers the circumstances of the alleged offense.

In a statement after Griner entered her plea, her legal team said that it was the WNBA star’s decision to plead guilty to the charges, adding that the move “sets an example of being brave.”

“She decided to take full responsibility for her actions as she knows that she is a role model for many people,” the attorneys said. “Considering the nature of her case, the insignificant amount of the substance and BG’s personality and history of positive contributions to global and Russian sport, the defense hopes that the plea will be considered by the court as a mitigating factor and there will be no severe sentence.”

On Thursday, some of Griner’s teammates on the Russian basketball team she plays for, UMMC Ekaterinburg, addressed the court as character witnesses. Team captain Evgeniya Belyakova told the court that Griner is “the heart of our team,” according to a tweet from Moscow NPR correspondent Charles Maynes, and said that fans in Russia “adore her.”

After the hearing, Griner’s attorneys said that UMMC Ekaterinburg director Maxim Ryabkov “gave a positive description of Brittney Griner during his speech in court, noting her outstanding abilities as a player and personal contribution to strengthening the team spirit, which allowed the team to achieve the highest results in the Russian basketball premier league and in international competitions for many years.”

Griner ‘Wrongfully Detained’

The U.S. State Department has officially listed Griner as wrongfully detained and the White House has said that President Joe Biden is doing everything he can to secure her release from Russia. Media reports have speculated that the governments of the United States and Russia could eventually engineer a swap of prisoners, with the American authorities perhaps releasing Russian arms trader Viktor Bout, nicknamed “the Merchant of Death,” who is serving a 25-year sentence for conspiracy to kill U.S. citizens and providing assistance to a terrorist organization.

After Friday’s hearing, U.S. Embassy charge d’affaires Elizabeth Rood commented on the support Griner has received during her trial.

“In the hearings yesterday and today what became very clear is the tremendous amount of respect and admiration both in the United States and here in Russia where Miss Griner has been playing basketball for seven years, not only for her professional achievements but for her character and integrity,” she said outside the courthouse.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, the senior Russian diplomat, has declined to comment on a potential prisoner swap, noting that until her trial concludes “there are no formal or procedural reasons to talk about any further steps.”

Ryabkov also warned that criticism from the United States, including Griner’s status as wrongfully detained and negative comments about the Russian court system, “makes it difficult to engage in detailed discussion of any possible exchanges.”

The next hearing in Griner’s trial is scheduled for July 26. Her legal team has said that they expect the trial to conclude sometime in August, although her detention has been extended until December 20 by Russian authorities.