From: Jacob Patterson
To: Lemos, June
Cc: Spaur, David; Marie Jones
Subject: Public Comment -- 5/23/22 CC mtg., Item No. 7B, Proposed Cannabis Ordinance Date: Thursday, May 19, 2022 3:54:13 PM
City Council [via BCC],
I reviewed the agenda materials in detail concerning the proposed cannabis ordinance, which already include the written comments I previously submitted concerning the Initial Study and Negative Declaration (IS/ND) for the cannabis ordinance project so I will focus on the proposed ordinance itself in this public comment. I find that the draft ordinance proposed for first reading at this continued public hearing accurately reflects the direction of the council majority from your prior meetings except for one brief provision, which I recommend you direct Marie and staff to remove tonight before potentially proceeding with the first reading because I do not think it reflects your prior direction and also because it presents a serious inconsistency issue with the Inland General Plan and an internal inconsistency issue with the rest of the ILUDC, including other changes included in the proposed ordinance tonight.
As I mentioned in my comments on the IS/ND, the addition of "wholesale" and "distribution" among the potentially permitted accessory uses for cannabis retail within the commercial zoning districts is in direct conflict with the Inland General Plan's provisions concerning the purposes, intent, and permitted uses within the City's commercial districts. Marie discussed this same consistency issue concerning potentially creating a formal microbusiness use type and potentially allowing it in the commercial districts rather than limiting it to the industrial districts. Wholesale and off-site distribution uses are only permitted in the City's industrial districts not our commercial districts and trying to show-horn them into the list of potentiallypermitted accessory uses to cannabis retail would first require an amendment to the Inland General Plan. The City hasn't done that as part of this application so those two industrial district appropropriate uses should be removed at this time and later brought forward as part of the companion project you discussed with Marie at your prior meetings concerning this cannabis ordinance update project. If you pair those (future) changes with a corresponding amendment to the Inland General Plan definitions and descriptions of the purposes and intended uses in the commercial districts, you can proceed with that policy direction but what you cannot do is try to ignore the direct conflict between that provision in the draft proposed ordinance and the Inland General Plan or with the other provisions of the ILUDC that are also incompatible with the potential policy decision to make them permissible accessory uses to a cannabis retail primary use and try to include those two industrial uses as potentially permissible accessory uses as part of this ordinance project. Ignoring the direct conflicts and clear inconsistency between the proposed language and the Inland General Plan would constitute an abuse of discretion and is procedurally improper, in my opinion.
There is also an issue with simple logic in trying to allow wholesale or distribution uses as accessory uses to a cannabis retail primary use. Such uses are not logically related to a primary use of cannabis retail nor are they consistent with the ILUDC's definition of accessory uses because neither wholesale nor distribution uses support or are related to storefront retail sales to an end customer since they both serve off-site activities and locations and have nothing to do with the end-customer retail sales of cannabis products to a store's customers. Instead, wholesale and distribution uses support other retail locations elsewhere in California (or on other parcels in the City) and the sales are made to other businesses not end-user customers. In contrast, appropriate and internally consistent accessory uses could logically include cultivation of non-flowering nursery plants for sale to end-user retail customers or craft manufacturing because that potential accessory use is subordinate to and logically related to the primary use of cannabis retail since the nursery plants being grown or the products being "craft manufactured" on site will still be sold to end-user customers of the retail store. At most, a wholesale or off-site distribution use would be considered separate and distinct business ventures from a cannabis retail use on the same property so neither use could be considered as accessory uses to cannabis retail. Since those uses are also only allowed as primary uses in industrial districts, wholesale and off-site distribution need to be removed from the list of permissible accessory uses to cannabis retail in this proposed ordinance.
To fix this, you simply need to amend the proposed ordinance and potentially adopt it as amended. The specific amendment is to ILUDC section 18.42.057, subdivision C.4.a.i. to read "Office, Nursery (non-flowering) cultivation for on-site sales only; Retail Delivery; On-Site Distribution, and Craft Cannabis Manufacturing – no volatile solvents permitted." [The current draft reads as follows "Office, Nursery (non-flowering) cultivation for on-site sales only; Retail Delivery; On-Site Distribution, Craft Cannabis Manufacturing – no volatile solvents permitted, Distribution, Wholesale." so I simply deleted ", Distribution, Wholesale".] These two simple words create a huge issue for this proposed ordinance but removing them fully addresses those concerns and fixes a significant related issue with the draft IS/ND as well. Please consider fixing this issue by incorporating my suggested amendment before proceeding with introducing this proposed ordinance.
Although it does not present an Inland General Plan or internal ILUDC consistency issue, I also recommend considering amending the proposed Article 10 definition of "Craft Cannabis Manufacturing" to either remove the reference to washing machines or to specify that only food grade commercial equipment is permitted as part of craft cannabis manufacturing. The reason I make that suggestion is that the relevant state regulations concerning commercial cannabis manufacturing does not permit the use of household equipment like washing machines (or even commercial washing machines) in the manufacturing of cannabis products even if some businesses are currently using washing machines and ice as part of their manufacturing processes. Despite the not uncommon use of washing machines by some licensed cannabis manufacturers, I believe that equipment is not permitted by the California Department of Cannabis Control for licensed commercial cannabis businesses because washing machines are not certified as "food grade" equipment the way the other equipment listed in the current draft definition can be food grade equipment (e.g., blenders and cooking equipment). It makes little sense to list a piece of equipment in our definition of a particular use type that can't legally be used by any licensed commercial cannabis business in California.
Please don't interpret this comment and me supporting the policy direction of the majority of the City Council concerning this proposed ordinance; there are several provisions and majority direction that I disagree with, but I thought my public comments would be more useful if I focused on issues and apparent errors I have identified in the draft ordinance itself rather than trying to lobby you for a particular policy outcome I might prefer over what is proposed based on your prior direction. That said, I respect the public process for the development of our local land use regulations even if my policy preferences are not fully reflected in the final work product that resulted from that policy-development process (unless the process was materially flawed, obviously).
Regards,
--Jacob