Next month, Los Angeles County is taking new steps to create legal access to commercial cannabis operations in the unincorporated areas, with a meeting that offers people a chance to hear the latest staff proposals on where dispensaries and cultivation operations could go under new rules currently in development.
County officials said Monday the biggest change with the new ordinance discussion is the creation of a permit process for these businesses, which has been part of a yearslong process.
Members of the L.A. County Office of Cannabis Management, which is part of the Department of Business and Consumer Affairs, discussed the process in a phone interview Monday on the condition that they be speaking on background.
OCM leadership said it was holding off on quotes for attribution because there are two main paths for cannabis regulation, under the county’s rules and laws, and both sets of changes are still very much under discussion and subject to the pending review.
For those who live within Santa Clarita city limits, their property won’t change,
under the new OCM proposals, as the city of Santa Clarita is an incorporated city with its own ban on commercial cannabis operations.
Based on a previous staff study several years ago, officials said the new operations could bring in more than $10 million annually in tax revenue to county coffers.
Title 8, Title 22
Technically, all commercial cannabis businesses are prohibited in the unincorporated areas, since L.A. County passed a ban in 2017.
That prohibited such sales until a set of rules was put in place, and in the meantime, dozens of delivery-service options have become available in a legal gray area through online and app-based services.
But no one is legally licensed in the area, making regulation and taxation more difficult.
Cannabis officials said Monday that there are two main sets of rules that will govern commercial cannabis permitting in the L.A. County Code of Ordinances: Title 8, commercial cannabis administration amendments; and Title 22, zoning ordinance amendments in accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act.
Title 8 basically addresses who can operate under what rules; and Title 22 is more about where they can operate, which is the focus of next month’s hearing in front of the county Regional Planning Commission.
The OCM said Monday it was not ready to release the Title 8 changes to the public, pending a review from the L.A. County Counsel’s Office, but they could be ready for public consumption this fall. Title 8 changes wouldn’t go to the Regional Planning Commission because those types of changes — which include a wide range of concerns from licensing procedures to security requirements and “good neighbor” policies — would ultimately be approved by the L.A. County Board of Supervisors.
At the Aug. 26 Regional Planning Commission hearing, there are scheduled to be two main parts of the discussion related to Title 22, OCM officials said Monday: a “high-level” programmatic environmental impact report, and proposed changes to the county’s zoning ordinances that would deal more specifically with placement.
EIR, zoning changes
In 2022, L.A. County created a broad framework that would set an overall cap of 90 licenses across six categories of cannabis businesses, and a cap of no more than five per supervisorial district.
That authorized up to 90 business licenses in unincorporated areas, 50 for retail operations, including 25 storefront and 25 delivery locations, and 40 for non-retail businesses, which is split up as 10 each for cultivation, manufacturing, distribution and testing.
But the issuance of those permits has been dependent on the other elements, such as the EIR being completed and the other changes being approved.
Part of those rules include additional “overconcentration measures,” according to one official, which, like the per-district cap, is intended to prevent a clustering of such businesses.
A focus of Title 22 is really “to specify where commercial cannabis could be allowed,” officials said Monday.
The commission’s review next month will be focused on the land-use portion, such as changes to the zoning for where a dispensary or cultivation operation could go, according to county officials.
The EIR looks at what the county sees as the potential environmental impacts from licensing 90 of the various types of commercial cannabis operations, with a proviso that the county’s ordinance does not permit any outdoor-growing operations, which are typically associated with more significant potential environmental impacts.
L.A. County officials also shared a detailed map of where commercial cannabis operations could potentially be permitted under the proposed guidelines, which is available here: bit.ly/3RjuOQd.
Here’s the link to participate virtually in next month’s hearing to be held at 9 a.m. Aug. 26 in Downtown Los Angeles: bit.ly/ZOOM-RPC.
