By D. Collins, Investigative Reporter — Illegal Business & City Responses  |  with I. Martinez  |  Good Shepherd Media Investigations  |  October 30, 2026

Three weeks after the City of Santa Clarita confirmed it had opened a zoning case against a Sand Canyon wedding venue, a new sign went up on the property’s white rail fence.

It does not advertise weddings. It reads: “Sikhs of Service — A Religious Tax Exempt Corporation — Serving Humanity since 2023.”

The venue’s website and its Google Business listing, as of this writing, still offer the same property as a wedding venue for “events up to 300 guests.”

The Los Angeles County Assessor’s current roll shows no tax exemption of any kind on the parcel. And no corporation by that name could be located in the public nonprofit databases Good Shepherd Media searched.

The property is 27634 Rolling Hills Avenue, Assessor’s parcel 2840-004-024, marketed since 2023 as “Rolling Hills Ranch Venues” — “just over 10 acres” with four event spaces. On October 5, 2026, the City Clerk confirmed in writing that the City had opened code-enforcement case CE-26-1844 on the address, for zoning. It is one of three open Sand Canyon venue cases; a fourth venue, on a City-promoted movie ranch, carries none. (An open code-enforcement case is an allegation, not a finding.)

Photographs and video taken from the public right-of-way on October 29 show the new sign zip-tied to wire mesh on the roadside fence (video).

The same day, a few miles south, the fence of the fourth venue — The Barn at Rancho Deluxe, 26075 Sand Canyon Road — still carried the “Jason Gibbs for Congress” and “Bill Cooper for Water Board” banners reported earlier this month (video).

What the sign claims, and what the records show

The sign makes three claims: that an entity called Sikhs of Service exists, that it is a corporation, and that it is tax-exempt. Each is checkable in a different place, and each check came back the same way.

Two things should be said in fairness. A bona fide church does not have to register with the IRS, the Attorney General, or anyone else to be tax-exempt under federal law; an empty search is not proof that a congregation does not exist. And seva — selfless service — is a central tenet of the Sikh faith; a name invoking it is not, by itself, evidence of anything improper. What is checkable is the word “Corporation,” which is a public record, and the words “Tax Exempt,” which, for property, is a claim filed with the Assessor under penalty of perjury. As of today, neither record exists.

Why a religious sign does not change the zoning case

If the sign is meant to answer CE-26-1844, the law is not on its side. In Calvary Chapel Bible Fellowship v. County of Riverside, 948 F.3d 1172 (9th Cir. 2020), a church challenged a California county’s refusal to let it build an open-air wedding venue on agricultural land, arguing the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act protected it. The Ninth Circuit ruled for the county: “the plain terms of the ordinance treat religious assemblies on equal terms with secular assemblies,” the court wrote. A church’s wedding venue is regulated as a wedding venue. The church was free to worship; it was not free to run a special-occasion facility where no one else could.

Santa Clarita’s own code classifies “banquet facilities” — “facilities intended for small or large group functions in which food … is consumed,” including “reception halls” — as a commercial use (SCMC § 17.43.010). Who sponsors the reception does not change what it is. A religious organization that hosts paid, 300-guest weddings on a residential-equestrian parcel is operating a banquet facility, and the same permit questions apply as before the sign went up.

The protection runs the other way too. Federal law shields sincere religious exercise, and the Ninth Circuit has ruled against California counties that denied permits to genuine Sikh congregations. If a congregation forms at Rolling Hills Avenue and worships there, the City will have to proceed carefully — and so will this publication. Nothing observed to date suggests one has.

The word this story does not use

Falsely claiming a church exemption can be a crime in California — a knowingly false exemption claim signed under penalty of perjury is perjury (Penal Code § 118), and offering a false instrument for filing in a public office is a felony (Penal Code § 115). But those statutes punish a filing, not a sign. No exemption claim is on file. No solicitation of donations has been observed. Until a document exists, “fraud” is a conclusion the record does not support, and Good Shepherd Media does not print it. What the record supports is narrower and, for a property under active enforcement, pointed enough: a commercial venue under investigation has put up a sign asserting a legal status that no public agency has recognized, while continuing to advertise the same commercial use.

A City that logs questions instead of answering them

Good Shepherd Media has put written questions to the City on the Sand Canyon venues since September. The City’s read receipts show the City Manager, the Director of Community Development, the responsible code-enforcement officer and four of five Councilmembers have opened them; the City Manager opened the most recent, on October 26, seven minutes after it was sent. None has been answered. Instead, between October 26 and 27, the City’s records system logged six of the publication’s inquiries as Public Records Act requests, each with a response date in early November. The City’s written-response deadline on the four-venue questions is October 31.

Questions now on the record

Rolling Hills Ranch Venues, the City of Santa Clarita and the Los Angeles County Assessor were each asked for comment. Their responses, or the absence of them, will be reported.

The public record

Good Shepherd Media Investigations covers illegal business, land use and local government in the Santa Clarita Valley. An open code-enforcement case is an allegation, not a finding; no conclusion of wrongdoing by any person or organization is stated or implied.
Public records cited: Los Angeles County Assessor parcel 2840-004-024 (retrieved Oct. 30, 2026);
Los Angeles County Treasurer and Tax Collector, 2026 Annual Secured Property Tax Bill, AIN 2840-004-024;
City of Santa Clarita Public Records Act response of Oct. 5, 2026; Calvary Chapel Bible Fellowship v. County of Riverside, 948 F.3d 1172 (9th Cir. 2020); SCMC § 17.43.010.

Video documentation: youtu.be/MlpyuiKm3PE (Rolling Hills Ave sign, Oct. 29, 2026) · youtu.be/sUIufkJbckM (The Barn at Rancho Deluxe, Oct. 29, 2026) · youtu.be/97006FOcEyY · youtu.be/i4K6BFq-kBY · youtu.be/47J4D0pYxnE · youtu.be/bEMeBAWw9n0 · youtu.be/98lRxZEHBoo · youtu.be/HaTU0ZONCT8 · youtu.be/dPoXxxphwJE

Good Shepherd Media Investigations  ·  Part 2

Thirty-Nine Days, One Expired Permit, and a $487,299 City Manager Who Opened the Complaint Himself

The City of Santa Clarita produced its entire permit file for the cannabis billboard on Newhall Avenue. It contains one permit: two small, unlit wall panels reading “Ferguson Plumbing Supplies,” issued in 2015, never finaled, stamped EXPIRED. The lit dispensary billboard on that property matches none of it. The City read our complaint the day it arrived and has not written a word back.

By D. Collins and I. Martinez  |  October 29, 2026  |  Santa Clarita, CA

The sign

It stands on the Ferguson Plumbing Supply property at the corner of Newhall Avenue, Pine Street and Arch Street, one block from the Newhall Metrolink station. It is lit at night. It reads “GREEN LIGHT — Daily Deals on Top Brands,” names cannabis brands (Oakfruitland, Camino, CLSICS), and tells drivers to take the Roxford exit off the 5 to Greenlight Discount Pharmacy in Sylmar, in the City of Los Angeles. Greenlight holds an active state license, C12-0000080-LIC, to sell cannabis at 15507 Cobalt Street. That license lets it sell in Sylmar. It does not license a billboard in Santa Clarita; that is governed by Santa Clarita’s sign code. And state law requires the license number on every cannabis advertisement. In our photographs there is none.

The laws that apply

Two things the law does not say, so we will not say them either. The state’s freeway billboard ban (§ 26152(d)) covers signs located on an interstate or a border-crossing state highway; Newhall Avenue is a city street. And the 71.6-percent adult-audience rule applies to broadcast, print and digital ads, not a static sign.

The First Amendment is not the City’s excuse. In Cocroft v. Graham (5th Cir. 2024) the court upheld Mississippi’s near-total ban on cannabis advertising because the product remains illegal under federal law; the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case on May 5, 2025.

What the City’s own file shows

On September 20, Good Shepherd Media asked the City Clerk for every permit, owner record, operator record and nonconforming-use determination for any sign at 23950 Newhall Avenue (Request #11111903). The City produced records on October 1 and October 5 and closed the request. Here is what the City holds.

Building Permit BLD15-01435, issued May 21, 2015, to Nite Lite Signs Inc. of Chatsworth, applicant Warren O. Due, for a parcel the City listed as “23950 Newhall Avenue Vacant Lot,” APN 2831-025-025. Description of work: “INSTALL (2) 3′ X 7′ NON-ILLUMINATED WALL PANEL SIGNS @ COM’L LOCATION.” Forty-two square feet. Valuation $2,000. Fees $119.30. The “Finaled By” and “Finaled Date” lines are blank. The City’s own file name for it is “PERMIT EXPIRED.”

The approved plans, stamped by Building and Safety and by Planning on the same day, show what those panels were: two blue-and-white “FERGUSON Plumbing Supplies” signs on the company’s own wall. The company’s own name, on its own building. An on-site sign. The file the City labeled “Correspondence / Legal Docs” is the two-page permit application for the same panels. There is no code-enforcement case in it, no billboard agreement, no nonconforming-use determination.

The City’s only permit for this cannabis billboard is for two plumbing-store wall panels. Expired.

The sign in our photographs is not two 3×7 wall panels. It is a freestanding, internally lit billboard carrying an off-site advertisement for a business in another city. Nothing in the file the City produced permits it. Four additional permit documents the City emailed on October 1 (one numbered 30028978 and three marked “NA”) are under review; if any of them is a lawful pre-1990 billboard permit for this structure, we will report it. The City was asked on September 20, and again on October 29, whether this structure holds a valid permit or is a legal nonconforming billboard. It has not answered.

39 days after City Manager Ken Striplin opened the complaint, the sign is still lit. The City’s own file shows why it shouldn’t be.

What the City did with the complaint

The September 20 letter was three things: a formal code-enforcement complaint, six press questions, and the records request. It went to Community Preservation, the City Attorney, the City Clerk, the City Manager and every councilmember, with timestamped, GPS-tagged photographs attached.

We know who opened it. Read receipts came back from City Manager Ken Striplin at 5:44 p.m. that evening, from Communications Manager Carrie Lujan at 5:35 p.m., from a third City Hall recipient at 5:19 p.m., and from Councilmember Jason Gibbs the next morning. Councilmember Marsha McLean opened the companion records request.

The records side of City Hall worked and worked on time. Two other things did not happen. The six press questions drew no written answer by the October 5 deadline or since. And the complaint was never treated as a complaint. The City Clerk’s October 1 email closed with this sentence: “To report a code enforcement violation, please contact the Community Preservation main line at (661) 286-4076.” A signed complaint with photographs, citing the code sections, addressed to the Community Preservation Division and personally opened by the City Manager, was answered with the phone number for filing a complaint. No case number. No inspection date. No citation. Not even a sentence saying the sign is legal.

The fine the City is not collecting

The Council resolutions the City produced (August 24, 2004 and March 25, 2008) set the schedule: $100, $200, then $500 for each additional offense within a year. The Code makes each day a separate offense. If the structure is unpermitted, then from the day the City Manager opened the complaint to the day this was published is 39 days: $100 + $200 + 37 × $500 = $18,800 the City could have assessed against the advertiser, the sign operator and the property owner. It has assessed, so far as any record shows, $0.

For contrast, Los Angeles County’s 2022 nuisance ordinance for unpermitted cannabis operations in unincorporated areas carries penalties of up to $30,000 a day.

Minors and the thousand-foot rule

State law draws a 1,000-foot line around daycares, K–12 schools, playgrounds and youth centers. Measured from the sign’s coordinates, the listed entrance points of William S. Hart Park are roughly 762 and 842 feet away. The statute says “playground,” not “park,” and the City’s own amenities page for Hart Park lists barbecues, not play equipment. Little Shepherd’s Nursery School sits at 24317 Newhall Avenue; whether it is licensed and within the line is a measurement the City has the tools to make in an afternoon. We asked the City Attorney on October 29 to make it, and to say whether he will use § 26152.2 if the answer is yes. The question is open. We will print the answer.

The policy behind the line is not in doubt. The RAND Corporation’s D’Amico, Miles and Tucker (2015) found that adolescents with greater exposure to medical-marijuana advertising were significantly more likely to use marijuana a year later. Baltimore’s ban on alcohol billboards where children walk to school was upheld by the Fourth Circuit in 1996. California bars alcohol advertising aimed at minors (Bus. & Prof. Code § 25664). Santa Clarita’s cannabis ban was adopted in 2018 on the same reasoning. The City has the law. What it has not shown is the will.

The man at the top

Ken Striplin has run the City of Santa Clarita since 2012 and worked for it since 1996. According to State Controller payroll data published by Transparent California, his 2024 compensation was $354,328 in regular pay, $29,355 in other pay and $103,616 in benefits: $487,299 in total pay and benefits. His pay is set by the five-member City Council, and under the Municipal Code it takes four of the five to remove him.

On October 19, Good Shepherd Media sent all five councilmembers and the City Attorney a press inquiry and records request on how that pay is set and justified. The City Clerk has twice asked us to narrow one item; we have. The councilmembers’ written answers are due October 30. We will print them, or print that none came.

The City Manager is not the officer who writes the ticket. He is the person every code officer answers to, and the person who decides whether a corridor gets inspected or gets a phone number. He opened this complaint himself on a Sunday evening. The sign is still lit.

Meanwhile, in Sand Canyon

Three properties in Sand Canyon run commercial wedding venues. The City has open zoning cases on two of them, Villa de Palma on Josel Drive (CE-26-1755) and Oasis Ranch House on Triumph Avenue (CE-26-1754). The third is The Barn at Rancho Deluxe, 26075 Sand Canyon Road: an 8,750-square-foot barn built in 2019 on a 200-acre movie ranch, marketed as “Santa Clarita’s premier event venue” with all-inclusive weddings, a “historic Saloon Bar,” catering packages and DJs. It has no City case. It is listed under “Special Event Venues” on Visit Santa Clarita, the City’s own tourism website.

On its road fence hang two banners: “Jason Gibbs for Congress” and “Bill Cooper for Water Board.” Councilmember Gibbs is running for the 27th Congressional District on November 3. Director Cooper is on the same ballot for the SCV Water Agency board.

Federal Election Commission records show that on September 29, 2025, Stephen H. Arklin (employer: Rancho Deluxe) and Diane Arklin each gave $3,500 to Jason Gibbs for Congress — $7,000, the legal maximum for the primary. The Arklins own Rancho Deluxe. Councilmember Gibbs opened our cannabis-billboard complaint on the morning of September 21.

Two things need saying plainly. Political signs on private property are protected speech, and the Arklins’ contributions are legal and publicly reported. Nothing in this article says otherwise. The question is not the banners. The question is why the City’s tourism office promotes a venue the City’s code office has never examined, while two neighbors on residential parcels carry open cases for doing the same thing.

The City’s likely answer is that Rancho Deluxe sits in the Movie Ranch Overlay Zone, which permits “incidental temporary community activities and social events.” The same ordinance says all non-film uses “shall be subject to the requirements of the base zone.” Whether a year-round, separately branded wedding business with its own venue manager, bar and catering menu is “incidental” to filmmaking is the question Good Shepherd Media has put to the City in writing, along with these: Was the site, parking and traffic plan the overlay requires ever filed? What occupancy classification is on the 2019 barn’s building permit? What did the ranch’s owners tell the City about event use when they asked to be annexed in 2011–2013? And why does one City department advertise what another would cite anywhere else?

Under the Levine Act (Gov. Code § 84308), a councilmember who has received more than $500 from a party within the prior 12 months must step aside from that party’s permit or entitlement proceedings. Whether a federal campaign contribution triggers that rule is a question we have put to the Fair Political Practices Commission. We have also asked Councilmember Gibbs whether he will recuse from any Rancho Deluxe matter that reaches the Council before September 29, 2027.

What the pattern looks like from the street

A resident who paints a fence the wrong color in Santa Clarita gets a letter. A resident who leaves a trailer on the street too long gets a citation. A dispensary in another city puts a lit billboard at the gateway to Old Town Newhall, on a property whose only sign permit is for the plumbing company’s own name, in a city that banned both the business and the billboard, and gets 39 days and counting of silence from a government whose chief executive is paid $487,299 and personally opened the complaint. A movie ranch whose owners maxed out to a sitting councilmember’s congressional campaign runs a wedding business the City advertises for it.

That is not a legal conclusion. It is what the records show, laid side by side.

What we asked, and of whom

City of Santa Clarita (Community Preservation, City Attorney, City Manager, Council): the six questions of September 20, still unanswered; on October 29, the complaint’s case number, inspection date and any citation; whether the structure holds a valid permit or is a pre-1990 legal nonconforming billboard; whether it displays the required license number; whether the City has measured the 1,000-foot buffer; and whether the City Attorney will act under § 26152.2. Answers requested by November 4, 2026.
Councilmember Jason Gibbs: the Arklin contributions, communications with staff about Rancho Deluxe, and Levine Act recusal.
Director Bill Cooper: contributions or in-kind support from the Arklins or Rancho Deluxe entities, 2022 and 2026 cycles.
Rancho Deluxe / the Arklin family: the approval under which The Barn operates, the barn’s permitted occupancy, its ABC and health permits, and the 2011–2013 annexation representations.
Greenlight Discount Pharmacy, Nite Lite Signs and the owner of 23950 Newhall Avenue: who placed the ad, under what contract, under what permit, and whether it carries license number C12-0000080-LIC.
Responses will be published in full as they arrive. Complaints on the billboard have been filed with the Los Angeles Department of Cannabis Regulation (COM-117004-2026) and the California Department of Cannabis Control.

Sources: Santa Clarita Municipal Code §§ 17.51.005, 17.51.080(N) and (V), 17.26.100, 23.10.010, ch. 23.20; City of Santa Clarita Building Permit BLD15-01435 and application (May 21, 2015), plans stamped May 21, 2015, and Council Resolutions of Aug. 24, 2004 and Mar. 25, 2008, all produced under Public Records Request #11111903 (Oct. 1 and Oct. 5, 2026); Bus. & Prof. Code §§ 26151, 26152, 26152.2 (SB 1498, Stats. 2024 ch. 899), 25664; AB 2249 (2026); 4 Cal. Code Regs. § 15040; Department of Cannabis Control license C12-0000080-LIC (real.cannabis.ca.gov); Cocroft v. Graham, 122 F.4th 176 (5th Cir. 2024), cert. denied May 5, 2025; Anheuser-Busch v. Schmoke (4th Cir. 1996); D’Amico, Miles & Tucker, Psychology of Addictive Behaviors 29:613 (2015); Transparent California / State Controller payroll data, Santa Clarita 2014–2024; FEC Schedule A, Jason Gibbs for Congress; SCMC § 17.38.040 (Movie Ranch Overlay); visitsantaclarita.com; Gov. Code § 84308; LA County Board of Supervisors motion, 2022 (Barger–Kuehl); Good Shepherd Media photographs and correspondence, Sept. 11 – Oct. 29, 2026.

D. Collins covers illegal business, local crime, police responses and the City’s responses to crime for Good Shepherd Media. I. Martinez covers land use, zoning and business fraud. any errors please feel free to Scan the code for Mr. Collins’s profile. or for
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