Nevada County CEO Rick Haffey reports  the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office formed a marijuana nuisance ordinance enforcement team that consisted of Sgt. Ray Kress and Deputy Mark Hollitz. The team’s goal was to respond to all marijuana nuisance complaints and enforce Marijuana Nuisance Ordinance that was approved on May 5, 2012, by the Nevada County Board of Supervisors. The Nevada County Sheriff’s Office has received 294 citizen complaints concerning marijuana nuisance to date.

Since implementing the marijuana nuisance enforcement team, the team has issued 85 notices to abate with 29 appeal hearings requested by citizens that have resulted in 13 appeal decisions rendered by the hearing officers. As a result of the compliance checks, the marijuana enforcement team has made 16 arrests, served 4 civil abatement warrants, served 2 criminal search warrants, seized a total of 372 marijuana plants, seized numerous pounds of processed marijuana and seized $30,000 in cash.

The team has investigated 2 marijuana Drug Endangered Child (DEC) cases and referred 8 cases to Nevada County Code Compliance for follow-up investigations. The team has detained foreign nationals from 11 countries (Canada, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Germany, Sweden, France, Spain, Israel, England and Italy) and has found only 2 individuals with verifiable employment.

There has not been one compliance check conducted where a marijuana garden was found to be in compliance with the nuisance ordinance.