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“Local control” triumphed in California, turning each major population hub into a powerful
As San Jose moves to shutter the vast majority of its
dispensaries and orders the remaining ones to vertically integrate, one thing
is becoming clear: California’s cities have historic, unpreceden
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s San Jose moves to shutter the vast majority of its
dispensaries and orders the remaining ones to vertically integrate, one thing
is becoming clear: California’s cities have historic, unprecedented
power to shape the face of medical cannabis in the Golden State.
A 2013 California Supreme Court verdict clarified cities’ broad
rights to allow or ban virtually any MMJ activity. Taken with the legislature’s
inability to agree on basic regulations for the 18 year-old, $1.4 billion
industry, cities are in the driver’s seat.
Whether it’s San Diego, Los Angeles, Richmond,
Lake Tahoe, or Berkeley, each city takes its own approach to regulating
dispensaries, cultivation and collectives. While some cities like Fresno are
spearheading harsh new bans of any MMJ activity, others like Oakland and San
Francisco and even tiny Palm Springs have gone the opposite way — taxing,
and regulating dispensaries, and reaping a windfall. Let’s take a tour.
San Francisco, CA
Pop.: 837,442
# of outlets: 24 licensed MMJ dispensaries; dozens of unlicensed
delivery services and collectives
The City by the Bay pioneered medical marijuana in the early ‘90s,
and continues licensing new dispensaries despite a three-year-old federal
crackdown that’s claimed some of its best and brightest. Dispensary
complaints are virtually non-existent.
Fresno, CA.
Pop.: 509,039
# of outlets: 0
Fresno leads the state in rolling back Prop 215 rights after the
California Supreme Court said cities had sweeping power to ban MMJ
dispensaries, collectives and cultivation.
San Jose, CA.
Pop.: 998,537
# of outlets: roughly 60 unlicensed MMJ dispensaries and dropping
With almost 100 dispensaries at its peak, San Jose zoned
dispensaries out of most of the city in Spring 2014, and mandated dispensaries
grown their own supplies in city limits. Five to 20 are expected to survive the
permitting process.
Los Angeles, CA
Pop.: 3.884 million
# of outlets: several hundred unlicensed MMJ dispensaries; about
135 qualify under Measure D
Los Angeles regulated dispensaries at the ballot box in 2013 with
Measure D, which grandfathers in about 135 clubs and bans the rest. The city
continues to play Whac-A-Mole with defiant operators, while collecting tens of
millions of dollars per year in sales and business taxes from them. Mayor Eric
Garcetti endorses full legalization in 2016.
Palm Springs, CA.
Pop.: 44,552
# of outlets: four permitted; three operational
The small, desert retirement town is more than just a Coachella
hotel. City leaders licensed four dispensaries in 2013 and three are
operational. Collectives pay about $450,000 in annual taxes. Nearby Cathedral
City and Desert Hot Springs have gotten the message and legalized dispensaries,
too.
San Diego County, CA.
Pop.: 3.211 million
# of outlets: 1 licensed; dozens unlicensed
A quintessential medical marijuana battleground, San Diego’s
military and religious conservatism clashes with its beachfront progressivism.
The result: a boom-and-crackdown cycle that’s enriched police
and drug cartels at the expense of patients.
Marin County, CA.
Pop.: 258,365
# of outlets: 0 permitted; dozens of unlicensed delivery services
One of the progressive counties in America is also full of
NIMBYs. That stands for ‘not in my back yard’.
A Marin County grand jury blasted Marin in 2014 for having zero licensed dispensaries
since the federal crackdown claimed its sole provider.
Richmond, CA.
Pop.: 107,571
# of outlets: 4 operational; 6 permitted
The Bay Area city turned a corner on its record violence with
smart-on-crime policing that included regulating dispensaries. Richmond grossed
nearly one million in dispensary taxes since 2012.
South Lake Tahoe City, CA.
Pop.: 21,403
# of outlets: 1 licensed dispensary
The region that gave the world OG Kush also struggles with how to
locally regulate cannabis cultivation. South Lake Tahoe has permitted one
dispensary and nine growers, of an estimated 300 growers in the city.
