The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors not only relaxed permitting regulations for cannabis cultivators but also snapped them into state compliance in the process.
In a unanimous vote on July 9, supervisors expanded mobile delivery hours for dispensaries in unincorporated communities, allowed for full cost recovery for immediate abatement of illegal cannabis activities, and tweaked the start date of cultivation permits.
“It’s not only expensive to the operators, it’s a waste of county staff’s time,” cannabis company Vertical Integration CEO Steven Herring told supervisors.
Herring referred to the present setup of cultivation permits that expire five years from the date of use permit approval. While an applicant can request an extension for an additional five years, they must go through the same permitting process as they did when they filed for their original permit.
The cannabis cultivation permit is the only type of land use permit that requires renewal after five years. The county Planning Commission on April 11 recommended that the Board of Supervisors eliminate the five-year renewal altogether while amending the land use ordinance and coastal zone land use ordinance.
The supervisors upheld the Planning Commission recommendation and removed the five-year expiration clause for cannabis cultivation permits.
The board also set the hours of mobile delivery for dispensaries to be 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., aligning with the state’s commercial cannabis regulations. Currently, those hours are 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. for non-storefront retail dispensaries.
“This inconsistency presents challenges for enforcement of the ordinance since dispensaries located within incorporated cities are subject to different hours of operation but may still conduct mobile delivery within unincorporated areas of the county,” the Planning Commission staff report read. “A benefit for aligning the hours of operation with state regulations would be a potential increase in sales tax from sales occurring during those hours from businesses located within the unincorporated areas of the county.”
These updates to the county’s cannabis regulations closely followed the Board of Supervisors’ June decision to halt a cannabis business tax increase to 8 percent. After an influx of comments from cannabis business owners, supervisors froze the tax at 6 percent.
The modified regulations are part of the Board of Supervisors’ direction to staff last September to prepare a Cannabis Clean-up Ordinance Amendment.
Supervisors added to the wave of change by altering the abatement practices and abatement cost recovery for violations of the cannabis ordinance. They did so based on a proposal brought forward by county counsel and the Cannabis Compliance Team in September 2023. The changes call for a detailed notice of nuisance abatement process, and scrutinizes cannabis activity and industrial hemp-related violations.
“The intent of these amendments is to allow for the full recovery of costs in the case of immediate abatement of illegal cannabis activities,” the Planning Commission staff report said. “Current abatement practice is for the Cannabis Compliance Team and Sheriff Department to abate (take illegal plants into custody) on the same day the notice of nuisance and hearing is provided.” Δ
Correction: The previous version of this story stated the incorrect result of the Board of Supervisors’ decision on the expiry of cannabis cultivation permits. New Times regrets the error.
This article appears in Jul 11-21, 2024.