The Chico City Council has directed staff to present on the feasibility of legalizing commercial cannabis cultivation.
Currently, city residents can grow cannabis for personal use only, and then must comply with strict guidelines. Some of those guidelines are having only six plants and allowing for inspections with 72-hour notice.
Councilmember Katie Hawley brought an agenda item to Council at the April 21 meeting in order to open discussion on allowing both indoor and outdoor commercial cultivation. During public comment, the three local dispensaries — Embarc, Oregrown and Sweet Flower — applauded the model the City has established but raised concerns about allowing more retail licensing.
“The City made a deliberate decision to limit the number of retail licenses and limit the select operators through a competitive process,” said Embarc’s government and community manager, Josh Lewis.
Allowing more retail wasn’t part of the agenda item presented to Council. But adding it in was something Councilmember Addison Winslow tried to do later in the meeting. A vote on that failed.
Hawley has conducted a series of meetings with City and industry leaders to look at ways cannabis regulations could be eased, and commercial cultivation arose from those meetings. Now, following the 5-2 vote earlier this week, City staff will continue that work to examine the feasibility of allowing commercial cultivation while balancing community considerations.
Hawley reported that the regulations in place could lead to worsened environmental outcomes because of unauthorized infrastructure, and recommended revising regulations while considering local businesses and energy usage. Her councilmember report says Chico has a “viable climate for outdoor cultivation.”
This was something Tracy Vincent, a local farmer, disagreed with during the public comment period of the meeting. She said the weather here is too hot for growing cannabis.
“We’re just not going to grow good pot here,” she said. “It’s just not going to happen. But that’s okay. We can have mediocre pot, people still wanna get stoned. It will be fine.”
Another speaker, Charles Burnon, one of the founders of Chico’s Best, disagreed with Vincent. “I do this for a living. If we could put this back in town, I would love to put Chico on the map for some of my strains that I’ve created that can take that 100-degree weather.”
The high energy and water usage needed to grow cannabis worried Vincent and members of the council. Hawley explained energy usage was a concern of hers, too. She said outdoor cultivation would help those environmental concerns and the City could consider stricter guidelines for indoor cultivation.
Tim Dodd, co-founder and CEO of Sweet Flower, said a document sent to the Council is misleading. The document’s author was later identified as Chico Cannabis Company CEO David Peterson.
“It claims Chico has a $30 million cannabis market, but that is, unfortunately, two years of sales, not one,” Dodd said.
Hawley told ChicoSol that while she has been interested in commercial cultivation for some time, it was a low-priority for her until it was brought up by Chico Cannabis Company founder Peterson.
The study sent by Peterson was one part of the process that led to the April 21 agenda item.
Peterson also spoke at the meeting.
“The City took a chance on cannabis and it has been an overwhelming success,” he said. “It may not be perfect, but there is a clear opportunity to continue improving it and generate more revenue by allowing thoughtful industry expansion.”
But several Council members indicated concern.
Councilmember Mike O’Brien, who is also commander of Butte Interagency Narcotics Task Force, is opposed to industry expansion, raising concerns over black market sales and recent studies linking cannabis use to mental health disorders.
“I’m going to encourage the industry to come forward and put some teeth into the laws related to illegal marijuana and the black market,” O’Brien said.
Winslow and Councilmember Bryce Goldstein argued that opening up access would suppress the black market.
“I’m also concerned about the black market, and that’s why I support legalization and allowing legal business to function,” Goldstein said.
Goldstein also said this could increase tax revenue for the City. “I fully believe we should allow for more safe and legal cannabis businesses,” she said.
Councilmember Tom van Overbeek said he was opposed. He said there are already too many “unmotivated, young people.” He added that selling them cannabis would make them even more unmotivated.
“I’m against increasing the production of dope and having more dope dealers,” van Overbeek said.
Mayor Kasey Reynolds wants to learn more about cultivation, explaining that she promised the community to slowly ease the cannabis market into Chico. “I’ve toured some in Sacramento and they aren’t as scary to me as they were in the beginning,” she said.
Van Overbeek and O’Brien voted no, while the other councilmembers voted to begin looking at the feasibility of commercial cultivation. In an upcoming City Council meeting, staff will present on the pros and cons of revising the City’s ordinance.
“I hope that in the future we can look at relaxing personal cultivation,” Hawley later told Chicosol. “There’s a lot of steep hurdles.”
The third paragraph of this story has been corrected to clarify the position of the three local dispensaries, which are concerned about more retail licensing.
Chris Hutton is a journalism major and a contributor to ChicoSol.