From the field: Our new neighbor is an out of town Board certified surgeon. Who wants to put a commercial marijuana operation next to our home.

Welcome to cannabis country

My husband and I purchased our home in Petaluma in fall 2020. We’re a young, newlywed couple. This is our first home, and what we thought was our forever home. It’s a beautiful yellow victorian farmhouse and heritage home on one acre of land. We are surrounded by large fields where horses, cows, and sheep graze. We purchased the home hoping to start a family. We fell in love with the neighborhood. There are kids all around.

Last week we found out about a pending permit to grow Cannabis for the property right next to ours. A wealthy board-certified plastic surgeon from out of county filed for the permit back in March, 2019. We’re devastated. It is for an approximately 43,000 sqft cannabis operation including a wholesale nursery and propagation greenhouse, 8,000 sqft of outdoor cultivation, and a processing, transport distribution facility.

I’m appalled that a board certified surgeon can oversee such an operation, just 300 ft from the wall of our home. Should this permit pass, my children would look out their bedroom window every day and see drugs, guards, pesticide storage, a parking lot, and an estimated 60 vehicles passing down their driveway, right next to our back porch every day.

We’re concerned about our family, our safety, and the crime this will bring to our neighborhood. Also, the health and environmental risks – their use of pesticides and pollutants would jeopardize our well water, which provides the water we use to cook, drink, and bathe in.

We are one of many families in Sonoma County facing this so close to our home. We are doing everything we can to fight to keep our neighborhood safe, and to save our home. However, it doesn’t look good for us. 

-Lost our dream home in <redacted>