Pacific Grove considering marijuana sales in the city
The Pacific Grove city council is considering rescinding the current moratorium on cannabis businesses in the city.
At Wednesday's meeting, the council voted 6-1 in favor of putting cannabis sales on a future agenda.
The vote came after they looked at a report done by the Economic Development Commission that outlined a lot of benefits to allowing cannabis businesses in Pacific Grove.
Pacific Grove residents we spoke with were split on the idea.
"It's about time, it's about 30 years too late. Get it going on, good stuff," Bill Harbor said.
But 18-year-old Anderana Lee said she's not sure cannabis is a good fit in America's last hometown.
"I don't know how I feel about it being so local, you know," Lee asked.
In 2017, as the legal marijuana law went into affect statewide, the city voted to ban commercial cannabis activity within city limits.
The report recommends allowing two businesses: "Permitting operation of one retail dispensary offering medical and recreational cannabis, and a business offering cannabis home delivery that might be operated separately."
The report says they don't have data to gauge the demand for cannabis in Pacific Grove and there's no market analysis behind their recommendations, but it did say, "a single dispensary seems appropriate to our scale as a community."
The report looked at a California city with a comparable size to Pacific Grove and said they are "on track for about $180,000 annual revenue from one dispensary based on two quarters of experience."
The report names 5 benefits for Pacific Grove:
- "Goods and services for citizens of Pacific Grove and our visitors"
- "Jobs"
- "Tax revenue"
- "Increased traffic to other businesses"
- "Potential reduction in illegal sales of cannabis"
18-year-old mother Rachel Weeks said she's opposed to having cannabis businesses in Pacific Grove and she believes it will lead to increased teen usage.
"I've seen it personally teens going to pot stores and pretending they are the age and they sell it to them," Weeks said.
According to the LA Times, the illegal market is estimated to more than double the legal market in 2019.
Analysts say the black market thrives in part because some towns keep it illegal.
The report says providing more goods and services to Pacific Grove and tourists is the primary benefit and if the city decides to move forward, "customizations to meet local needs should be made thoughtfully and only if significant."