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After years of discussions, Sacramento expected to approve 10 new marijuana shops

The Sacramento City Council is expected to vote Tuesday to allow 10 new storefront marijuana dispensaries in the city in an effort to address longstanding equity issues in that industry.

Of the city’s current 30 dispensaries, none are owned by Black men or women – a population disproportionately arrested during the War on Drugs, according to Malaki Amen, executive director of the California Urban Partnership.

To address that issue, the council has been discussing for years whether to allow more pot shops to open.

The council previously discussed holding a lottery to choose the 10 new shop owners, but the council directed staff to instead select them based on criteria.

The proposed criteria include evaluating whether applicants will be able to successfully submit a complete application for a dispensary permit, be able to successfully operate a dispensary, and utilize criteria “reasonably necessary to protect the public health, safety, and welfare,” the staff report said.

It’s unclear from the report whether applicants would have to prove they have capital or investors to start the business.

Amen raised issues about whether that criteria will allow the people most impacted by the War on Drugs to open dispensaries – the goal of allowing new shops to open in the first place.

“We’d like the opportunity to participate in a conversation about what those methods should be and the criteria should be,” Amen told the council’s Law and Legislation Committee last month.

Councilman Jay Schenirer said there are limitations on how the city language can be written, for legal reasons.

“I think we all have the same goals on this program around equity,” Schenirer said.

The people interested in opening shops had a say in the criteria language, cannabis manager Davina Smith said.

The Law and Legislation Committee, which contains four council members, unanimously voted to recommend the item to the full nine-member council, a sign it will likely pass.

To be considered, applicants must be participants or former participants in the city’s Cannabis Opportunity Reinvestment and Equity (CORE) program. That program is only open to residents who meet certain requirements, such as earning a low income, living in certain zip codes most impacted by the War on Drugs, or having a prior arrest for a cannabis-related charge. The program had about 159 graduates as of late August.

While permits for manufacturing, cultivation, delivery and distribution have been available, no permits for storefront dispensaries, the most desirable, have ever been available to new applicants. When recreational marijuana became legal California, the city allowed the shops already selling medical marijuana to have the only storefront permits.

Last year, The Sacramento Bee reported that one group of business partners had been able to gain ownership of a third of the city’s storefront dispensaries, despite a city code intended to prevent that. The code has since been strengthened.

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Sacramento may allow 10 new pot shops to address inequity in city’s marijuana dispensaries

Sacramento is poised to allow 10 new cannabis dispensaries in an effort to fix long-standing equity issues in the city’s retail pot market.

Of the city’s 30 dispensaries, none are owned by black men and women, demographics that were disproportionately arrested during the War on Drugs, Malaki Amen, executive director of the California Urban Partnership, has said.

To address that, the City Council in 2018 approved the creation of the Cannabis Opportunity Reinvestment and Equity (CORE) program. For those who meet certain income, zip code and other requirements, the program waives thousands of dollars in fees and prioritizes applicants for permits.

Although permits for cultivation, manufacturing, and delivery are available, there is no way for a CORE graduate to open a dispensary, which most want to do. About 117 people recently graduated from the program.

Councilman Larry Carr proposed the city get rid of the cap altogether. If his colleagues won’t agree to that, he suggested the city allow 30 new permits so half the shops in the city would be owned by CORE participants.

“There are 30 licenses granted. Equity will be when there are 30 CORE licenses granted,” Carr said.

He said he would accept a minimum of 10 new permits, however, and Councilman Allen Warren agreed.

Councilmen Jeff Harris and Eric Guerra raised concerns with allowing too many new shops, suggesting the city should start with three.

Mayor Darrell Steinberg, looking for a compromise, suggested the city allow 10 new permits spread out over two years.

Amen said he would prefer the city allow 10 new permits a year. That’s the amount the city currently has the staff and resources to process, said Assistant City Manager Leyne Milstein.

“I appreciate concerns across the board from the mayor and council and yet I still have concerns about tip-toeing toward equity when we’ve been down this road for five years now,” Amen said, referring to when the city first started discussing equity issues in the city’s cannabis market. “We’re at a point not only where the city has to build trust with communities damaged by the War on Drugs, but we really have to be intentional about opening up this market.”

MARIJUANA DISPENSARY SCANDAL, FBI INVESTIGATES

The discussion followed reports by The Sacramento Bee that revealed a man who was indicted in October with Rudy Giuliani’s associates in a campaign-finance scheme co-owns a Sacramento dispensary. His business partners own a total of nine of the city’s 30 shops under the “Kolas” brand. In 2011, the business partners only owned two, city applications show. City code bars owners from selling or transferring permits.

Although city staff had been checking since 2014 to make sure at least one name remains in the application from the previous year, dispensaries have been allowed to add new names of owners, then over time, remove the names of original owners. The council in November amended city code to prohibit people with an ownership interest in a storefront dispensary from obtaining an ownership interest in another dispensary.

In addition, the FBI has been investigating whether pot business owners in Sacramento have bribed local officials in exchange for favorable treatment.

Ashby said the city’s priority should be fixing the problems that allowed the business partners to accumulate so many permits.

“I don’t understand how one person came back with (so many) when we very clearly, every member of this dais said that’s not gonna happen … and it happened anyway,” Ashby said Tuesday, holding up a copy of the article. “All the ones that were monopolized could’ve gone to women and minority-owned businesses.”

After The Bee stories were published in October, the council passed a moratorium on dispensary transfers, which lasts until March 11. The mayor called for a new city audit and for a new employee to be hired in the city auditor’s office to focus solely on the cannabis department.

The council approved the creation of that position Tuesday.

“I’m confident that we are beginning to build the checks and balances so if there is a problem that raises eyebrows, we know about it and we can act,” Steinberg said.