Vacaville moves closer to allowing cannabis businesses in city
(Graphic by Solano NewsNet)
The Vacaville City Council on Tuesday gave their preliminary approval to a resolution that would move the city closer to allowing cannabis-related businesses.
The approval comes four years after the city council issued a moratorium on new cannabis businesses in Vacaville, one that was essentially renewed two years ago.
The moratoriums were approved after voters passed Proposition 64, which legalized recreational cannabis use for residents over the age of 21 and opened the door for local governments to levy taxes on the sale of cannabis goods within their communities.
Since Proposition 64 was passed, several cities within Solano County — including Benicia, Dixon, Suisun City and Vallejo — have approved cannabis businesses. Earlier this year, the Fairfield City Council was weighing the approval of two retail permits for cannabis businesses there.
Vacaville is the only incorporated city without a process for allowing cannabis-related businesses, joining unincorporated areas of Solano under the county’s jurisdiction in imposing moratoriums that were essentially de facto bans on cannabis businesses.
Back then, city officials defended the bans, saying they needed to study the potential impacts of cannabis businesses in Vacaville. The bans were backed by the Vacaville Police Department as well as some residents who expressed concern that cannabis cultivation, delivery services and retailers could lead to an uptick in crime.
But the decision meant leaving millions of dollars in tax revenue on the table. In 2019, an auditing firm hired by the City of Vacaville to explore the issue of cannabis-related businesses found that the counties who legalized such businesses collected more than $1.5 billion in gross receipts in the first year since Proposition 64 was passed. That number led to the collection of more than $15.1 million in tax revenue for those communities who levied a 1 percent tax on cannabis-related goods and services.
That number was expected to sharply increase by 2020, the auditing firm said, predicting that cannabis-related business activity in California would generate $7.6 billion in revenue and noting that the emerging cannabis industry could lead to job creation and additional sources of municipal revenue.
On Tuesday, some city council members — including the mayor — continued to express concern over the public safety implications of allowing cannabis-related businesses in Vacaville, but their concerns were largely drowned out by members of the public and others on the council who wanted to move forward with plans that could eventually open the door for those types of businesses.
The council ultimately gave their preliminary approval to a resolution that would scrap the city’s ban on those businesses by lifting the latest moratorium issued in 2019. A second round of approval is needed before the resolution takes effect, which could happen as soon as the next council meeting.
If approved in full, it would allow the city to zone certain parts of the community for cannabis-related businesses — dispensaries would be allocated to commercial zones, while most other types of businesses, including delivery and cultivation operations, would be relegated to industrial parts of the city.
But it would not automatically create a scenario where businesses could suddenly start up with legal clearance in Vacaville: City officials would still need to create a permitting process and come up with plans to collect fees and tax revenue from cannabis-related businesses. It was not clear from Tuesday’s meeting when city officials would return with a resolution that offers such a plan for businesses wanting to operate in Vacaville.
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