First Reading of Amended Cannabis Ordinance Tabled

[UPDATED] At the beginning of Monday’s City Council meeting, Mayor Victor Gordo announced that the first reading of the amended will be held at a later date.

According to Gordo, “more work” is being done on the ordinance.

Last week, the council voted to amend the ordinance to increase the number of dispensaries allowed in the city and change the distance requirements between those outlets.

The new regulations will allow the number of cannabis retailers to increase from one to three in each of the city’s seven council districts and decrease the required distance between retailers from 1,000 feet to 450 feet.

Councilmembers John Kennedy, Felicia Williams and Gene Masuda opposed the measure.

Kennedy was vocal in his opposition to the amendments and openly called them discriminatory and said staff did “shoddy” work on the amendment.

African Americans and Latinos bore the brunt of law enforcement actions for then-illegal cannabis activities for decades, but now are being cut out of the economic advantages of selling cannabis legally in many communities.

In Pasadena, it cost $14,000 just to enter the city’s cannabis approval process.

The city isn’t expected to consider implementing a social equity program for the cannabis trade until sometime next year.

In 2018, voters approved Measure CC, which allows a maximum of six dispensaries and requires each shop to maintain a distance from other dispensaries as well as churches, schools, libraries, and parks.

The proposed amendments would remove those distance limits by adopting requirements imposed by the state.

The city chose six dispensaries in 2019 to move forward in its process with Integral, Atrium, Sweetflower, Medmen, Harvest, and Tony Fong.

So far, only two of those dispensaries, Integral and Tony Fong, have opened. According to a staff report, Harvest has plans to open in District 3.

Atrium and Sweetflower unsuccessfully attempted to sue the city after they were not allowed to advance in the approval process. Medmen was disqualified and removed from the process.