The Benicia City Council completed its first reading of the city’s cannabis ordinances at Tuesday’s meeting. This is marks the first step in legalizing cannabis within the city.
The seven ordinances read by the council regarded person cultivation of cannabis, commercial cultivation, laboratories for testing, manufacturing, commercial retail, microbusinesses and delivery.
The council approved six permitted plants per household for personal use, but plants must be determined to have “minimal olfactory impact” and not be visible from the street. Cannabis businesses can not cover more than 22,000 square feet. These businesses are only allowed to operate in designated general industrial and limited industrial areas. Manufacturing can also only occur in designated general industrial and limited industrial areas, but business can deliver their product to other cannabis businesses, according to the ordinance.
Commercial retailers must adhere to a buffer zones of least 600 feet from any school, the council said. Additionally, buffers will not be placed around parks or recreation and youth centers. Areas like the the Industrial Park and commercial office spaces were agreed upon as spaces where laboratories for cannabis testing can occur.
Benicia’s city website offers a map where potential cannabusinesses can operate. These areas include the Columbus Parkway area, parts of the Lower Arsenal, West 7th Street, J Street, Military West, East 2nd Street and Solano Square.
Estimates ranging from $625,000 to $1.62 million tax revenue could be collected from cannabis for Benicia.
Remaining ordinances which were not read during the Tuesday night meeting will be read at the next council meeting on Feb. 20.
In other business, the City Council’s final decision on rehearing the requested emergency demolition permit for the Foundry and Office buildings at 678 East H Street was postponed to a later council meeting.
The council will next meet on Tuesday, Feb. 20. Videos of all council meetings can be viewed online at ci.benicia.ca.us/agendas.
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The second half of the meeting was very interesting on Tuesday. I applaud the council for their fortitude in getting this all worked out.
Our neighbors to the west are in “tier 1 priority” mode to enact an emergency ordinance on Feb. 27 to permit adult use sales after witnessing the bottom drop out of the cash cows keeping their GF on life support. Many speakers referenced the threat from little ol’ Benicia as we proceed into the prosperity of cannabusiness. As discussed here previously, the medicinal consumers market was mostly faux “patients” that no longer have to spend a hundred or whatever to get another year’s worth of permission to buy cannabis. Bay Area adult use consumers have to go to Berkeley or Oakland. Some will come back to Vallejo after they flip, but Benicia still stands to service a lot of consumers that would prefer to shop here in our quaint village. Growing our economy with cannabusiness and keeping our town the size it is will lead to increased real estate values across the board.
The next meeting should be interesting as well because there is likely to be a discussion about a local cannabis tax on the June 5 primary ballot. Most cities are capping the tax not to exceed 15% but giving authority to city councils to set it where they want and move it up or down. Vallejo is capped at 10% and they are talking lowering it. All we have to do is watch and undercut their market with a lower added tax. It’s just business.
I believe the whole “will it generate lots of tax revenue, or will it not” argument is completely beside the point in Benicia (although appears to be valid in Vallejo).. If it does not generate stacks of money for Benicia , that fine. It still will be generating some taxes. The health and safety concerns and the perceived potential of changing the face and spirit of Benicia can been seen as much ado about nothing.
The problem in Benicia is where do you put a retail recreational store. The other issue is we will not know our cap until Nov. 2018 if it passes. It then will go into effect on about April 1 2019. The city will lose a lot of tax revenue and then we will be faced with the fact that we are no longer the only town without a cannabis tax. Benicia will have two stores, but again where. It does not look good, best estimate is there will be no store opened before about Sept/Oct of 2018 if then. The only tax will be 1% plus 1% measure C. It will not come even close to covering the financial crisis Benicia will experience by the budget years 2019/20 and 2020/21.
April 20th should be declared “Alan Schwartzman Day” in Benicia. He was the triggerman on launching the regulation of cannabis in our city, famously holding up a Time magazine cover with a fat cannabis leaf and announcing “prohibition is over”.