Something in the Californian air! Huge cannabis farm near Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s Montecito home sparks fury amongst locals – including one who claims the smell ‘affected his driving’
- Farm near Harry and Meghan’s £11 million Montecito home has 20 greenhouses
- One passerby said the smell is so strong he had to stop driving and pull over
- Now the facility is installing ‘odour control systems’ to control the stench
A huge cannabis farm close to the Californian mansion of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex is causing a major stink among the area’s upmarket residents.
Prince Harry, 36, and Meghan Markle, 40, moved into their £11 million mansion in the Californian enclave close to Santa Barbara in July 2020.
While the nine-bedroom luxury pad may appear to be the dream home, an entirely legal weed factory lies just 10 minutes down the road from the house they share with son Archie, two, and two month-old daughter Lilibet.
The farm has 20 large greenhouses full of the pungent plants, and many residents have made complaints about the distinctive smell, leading the Santa Barbara Coalition of Responsible Cannabis and Cannabis Association for Responsible Producers to promise they will install ‘odour control systems’.
Montecito is home to a number of celebrities – including Oprah Winfrey, who conducted an explosive interview with the couple earlier this year – but local residents aren’t happy about the smell coming from a legal cannabis farm nearby
The smell is reportedly so bad that one local had to stop and pull over while driving down the road.
Gregory Gandrud, 60, told the Sunday Mirror: ‘The stink was getting stronger and heading their way. I was driving along the freeway and was hit hard by the smell.
‘It doesn’t make you high but it’s not what you want driving at 70mph.
‘I had to pull over. It made me completely lose my train of thought. Lots of people here are suffering.’
Speaking about the planned odour control measures, he added: ‘This is good news for us, and Harry and Meghan.’
Richard Mineards, another neighbour, added: ‘Growing cannabis near here became legal in 2016 and lots of growers jumped on the bandwagon.’
Harry and Meghan bought the £11 million California mansion this year after getting financial help from Prince Charles and taking out a mortgage. The pad is just a ten-minute drive from the weed farm
Both Harry and Meghan have allegedly partaken of marijuana in the past, with Prince Charles sending his youngest son to rehab aged 17, after learning he had smoked the drug.
And according to reports, Meghan handed out joints during her first wedding – when getting hitched to ex-husband Trevor Engelson – in Jamaica, in 2011.
Harry and Meghan’s 16-bathroom home – which has a sauna, library, and cinema – is surrounded by celebrity neighbours, most prominently Oprah Winfrey, who lives in an enormous mansion nearby.
Oprah Winfrey – who conducted the couple’s so-called ‘bombshell interview earlier this year, in which they made a number of allegations against the Royal Family – lives in a neighbouring huge multi-million home.
Notably, the couple’s mansion is almost home to the bench Meghan immortalised in her 2021 children’s book ‘The Bench’.
Harry and Meghan’s Montecito mansion – which has a staggering 16 bathrooms – is also home to the family’s favourite bench, which was immortalised in Meghan’s 2021 children’s book of the same name
The missive, which contained just 169 words, was panned by critics, with the Telegraph branding it a ‘semi literate vanity project’.
While it hit the top of the New York Times Bestseller list for children’s picture books in the US, it failed to break the Top 50 sales chart in the UK, selling just 3,212 copies in its first week.