Santa Rosa City Council Considers Pro-Pot Business Ordinance
SANTA ROSA (CBS SF) -- Officials in Santa Rosa on Tuesday were looking into ways to welcome more marijuana business to operate legitimately in the North Bay town.
The Santa Rosa City Council is working on new zoning to help growers under the radar to do business out in the open.
The proposal would allow certain marijuana operations in non-residential areas.
A decision by the City Council on Tuesday could bring marijuana operations out of the shadows and under city regulations.
The city of Santa Rosa already has ordinances on growing medical marijuana and licenses to dispense medical marijuana. But all the operations in between -- from lab testing to oil production to transporting the product -- remain unregulated.
The city now wants to create new codes around medical marijuana that could officially allow those operations, but only in non-residential areas.
This all comes ahead of the possible legalization of recreational marijuana statewide on the November ballot.
"We know that there's a potential ballot that might make recreational legal in California. We want to make sure we do some work ahead of time to understand what that might do," explained David Guhin, the Director of Planning and Economic Development for Santa Rosa. "Where do we want to place these, how do we want to start regulating it."
At the Sonoma Patient Group, one of two dispensaries in Santa Rosa, officials believe the proposed ordinance is good news for their industry.
"We believe it will make the industry stronger in Santa Rosa if the city council passes permit categories and make Santa Rosa a hub for growth in our industry," said Sonoma Patient Group President John Sugg.
City officials said even with the potential ordinance in place, they could still tweak some of the rules to fit the growing and changing marijuana industry.
"The goal is really to provide that compliance pathway to move this industry out of residential neighborhoods and out of places where they shouldn't be and in the right location with rules and regulations and the need to get building permits fire inspections and occupancy," said Guhin.
The ordinance would provide permits for specific marijuana operations like lab testing, but it does not allow volatile manufacturing such as hash-oil processing that could potentially cause explosions.
If approved, the ordinance would take effect immediately.