A West Wyoming plant accused of stinking up the neighborhood while producing the drug kratom pleaded no contest on Tuesday to 14 quality of life nuisance violations and was fined more than $4,200.
The plant, KB Crash Creations, and the owner of the property at 223 W. Sixth St., Donald J. Zurenda, each faced 30 quality-of-life citations alleging the odor created during the facility’s kratom-production process is a nuisance to neighbors.
The parties appeared in court for a hearing Tuesday morning and informed Luzerne County Judge Michael T. Vough that the case had been resolved.
KB Crash pleaded no contest to 14 counts alleging quality-of-life violations — one count for each victim in the case — and was fined $300 per violation, plus court costs.
Special prosecutor Laura Dennis-Bovani withdrew the remaining 16 counts the company faced as well as the 30 counts against Zurenda, who was represented by attorney Joseph G. Albert of the Kingston law firm Albert & Kamage.
She said afterward that she was satisfied by the resolution.
“This isn’t about closing a business down,” Dennis-Bovani said. “This is about quality of life, and if our residents can’t enjoy the outdoors because of something they smell, it’s simply first of all not fair, and it’s also against the law.”
The case pitted the business against neighbors who claimed the orange smell emitted from the plant was not only an annoyance but a physical irritant, describing the aroma as a “toxic” and “orange Pine Sol chemical smell.”
KB Crash is a business that extracts kratom, which comes from the leaves of a tropical tree that grows in Southeast Asia, and sells the resulting powder wholesale to manufacturers of kratom products.
The smell is the result of its use of a solvent known as D-limonene — a natural compound extracted from citrus fruit peels that is in widespread commercial usage — during the extraction process.
The company has disputed the alleged harshness of the odor, and said it has taken steps, including installing air scrubbers, to mitigate its spread.
In court Tuesday, the parties submitted a report from an environmental services firm indicating the odor has been abated, and Vough “commended both sides” for reaching an agreement.
Afterward, KB Crash attorney Michael J. McCarrie, of the Philadelphia law firm Bochetto And Lentz, said “there’s no more smell” and that the no-contest plea was a fair resolution.
“They abated the issue, so it made sense to resolve it,” McCarrie said. “It’s not an admission (of guilt). It just a recognition that both sides wanted to come to an agreement, because my client quite frankly is a member of the community and wants to maintain their good standing in the community.”
Dennis-Bovani said she was also pleased with the resolution to the case, which reflects the company’s “obligation to the neighborhood.”
“I am happy that KB Crash seems to recognize that this is an issue in the neighborhood,” Dennis-Bovani said. “They have produced engineering reports and reports from their own staff that show they have gone to great lengths to abate this smell that they have acknowledged in the air.”
She added that she hopes the abatement efforts will continue to contain the odor when the weather warms up.
“They are promising that they have done a lot of work to abate the smell, and I truly think that they did,” Dennis-Bovani said.