How far odors from a facility on East Magnolia Street waft through the air is at the center of a monthslong debate between some neighbors of the Trulieve-owned cultivation site located west of Interstate 10 near Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. After a hearing earlier this month, it’s likely the debate will linger for six more months.
A half-dozen neighbors of the facility have complained to the city since March. Two nearby businesses hired attorney Corey Foley to voice their concerns about fumes from the facility during a review of its use permit and filed a complaint about “a significant odor issue” on April 20.
The facility, which has been in the building since 2013, undergoes a review each year by the city of Phoenix to renew its use permit. Trulieve, a multi-state cannabis company that recently opened its 21st dispensary in Arizona, operates the depot.
Foley called the odors “noxious and considerable” during a Board of Adjustment zoning hearing on July 13 and said the fumes have “gone unaddressed for a significant period of time.”
“This isn’t a matter of revocation at this point,” Foley said. “This is a matter of asking this large multibillion-dollar company to meet the same legal standards that all the small businesses in Phoenix have to meet when they obtain use permits.”
The complaints triggered inspections by the city’s Neighborhood Services Department — and several repairs and upgrades to the facility by its owners. Larry Lazarus, an attorney for Trulieve, outlined the company’s odor control plan for the site during the hearing. It included installing air scrubbers in the main cultivation hall, adding carbon filter systems on exhaust fans, installing door seals and limiting the time exterior doors are open, and sealing holes in the ceiling and walls.
“My client has in good faith implemented an odor control plan you see before you,” Lazarus said during the hearing. “[The measures] are significant and greater than that usually occurring at a site of this nature.”
The remediation efforts made an impact during four inspections in May and June when a city inspector visited the site and didn’t notice the odor of marijuana from the property line. But on July 12, a day before the hearing, an inspector smelled marijuana along Magnolia Street before reaching the property line and again in the facility’s parking lot when a rolling door was opened.
“My opinion is that the odor escapes when the doors are open, but when the doors are shut, they’ve done a pretty good job of containing the odor inside the building,” said Betsy Cable, a code compliance manager for the city. She conducted the inspection before the hearing.
‘Proof is in the pudding’
Lazarus said Trulieve is willing to take additional steps to address odors at the facility, such as installing more fans, door flaps and ionization filters that would neutralize odor molecules. But, he warned that those additional efforts will take time — and their effectiveness could be impacted by a variety of factors.“Odors are subjective. Unlike noise where you can actually measure decibels off the site, people have different sensitivities,” he said.
“It’s a work in progress, but the work is 90% done,” Lazarus added.
Craig Tribken, the zoning adjustment hearing officer who conducted the July 13 meeting, proposed a six-month delay before ruling on whether Trulieve is meeting the stipulations of its use permit. He wanted to provide the company with enough time to adjust its odor control plan and obtain city permits to implement it.
“My concern is plans sometimes don’t work, and I guess from my point, I’d like to see the work done,” he said. “But in the end, the proof is in the pudding that there is no problem. Some point down the road, that is what we’re talking about — that there is no noticeable problem.”
Lazarus agreed that six months is enough time for the company to work with engineers to develop new ways to reduce odors from the facility. “We’ll get on it right away,” he added.
The additional time. Foley said, is enough to ensure the company takes more steps to reduce odors.
Tribken said he’ll revisit the matter during a hearing on Jan. 18.
“We are not approving anything. We are just continuing to allow the applicant and the attorney to mitigate the odor issue,” he added.
