San Francisco Chooses Cannabis Office Director

The city of San Francisco recently appointed an executive director for the city’s new Office of Cannabis. Nicole Elliot, an individual who has worked for the city since 2008 under mayors Ed Lee and Gavin Newsom, will oversee the rolling out of recreational cannabis regulations for the city.

City Administrator Naomi Kelly was the first to announce the appointment of Elliott. “She is uniquely qualified to assist The City with developing cannabis regulations and equity programs at a time when the state is moving swiftly in preparation for 2018 rollout of commercial cannabis,” Kelly wrote in the letter sent to city department heads on Monday.

The Office of Cannabis will reside within the Office of the City Administrator. The department will be responsible for developing and managing a permitting process for cannabis-related businesses, dealing with complaints, analyzing policy implementation and development. It will serve as the single point for state regulators, local businesses and the public.

Kelly continued to write that Elliott “has developed a strong understanding of city process and excellent working relationships with the departments, boards and commissions that will be interfacing with cannabis operations.”

A portion of the mayor’s budget, approximately $700,000, will fund three positions in the Office of Cannabis, including website creation and public outreach. The executive director position will pay $150,000 before benefits.

There has been pushback against the office’s development, saying the office’s creation is unnecessary and will add extra expense to the permitting process for businesses. San Francisco has 38 medical dispensaries in the city. “Based upon my expertise, I believe the creation of such a department is unnecessary; it increases costs to an already costly and bureaucratic permitting process, burdens the industry, in particular, small business owners, and is poor use of city resources and taxpayer funds,” wrote Kevin Reed, founder of the Green Cross dispensary, in an email to San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors in May.

Research before recreational cannabis legalization showed San Francisco has the highest cannabis use in the nation, with over 15 percent of residents over 12 years old using cannabis at least once a month.