Auburn staff present options for retail cannabis, buffer rules and potential tax grants

A staff member leading a City of Auburn workshop on Sept. 24 told participants the council had directed staff to solicit public input on retail cannabis after earlier instructions in January and again in August, and that staff would present findings to the city council at its first October meeting.

The workshop focused on three council questions: how many retail cannabis licenses the city should allow, where dispensaries or delivery should be located and whether the city should permit retail cannabis at all. The session included a live survey, map-based location discussion and examples of how nearby cities have regulated and budgeted for cannabis-related revenues and grants.

Staff framed the discussion by defining Auburn’s municipal boundary (about seven square miles) and by noting many online delivery services based in Sacramento are advertising delivery into Auburn. “This has been a long time coming,” the staff member said, noting the outreach work has taken nearly two years and that the survey would remain live until 5 p.m. next Wednesday before results are tabulated.

Why it matters: council members asked for a public process to gauge neighborhood preferences, potential tax revenue and the local regulatory approach. Staff emphasized that retail dispensaries could bring excise tax revenue and make municipalities eligible for state “cohort” grants used elsewhere for community projects and mitigation measures.

Key details from the workshop

- Regulatory context: Staff reviewed state milestones cited in the presentation: the Compassionate Use Act (1996), a 2015 legislative overhaul of medical cannabis licensing, and Proposition 64 (the Adult Use of Marijuana Act, 2016). Staff said the council was focused on retail dispensaries and delivery licenses for this phase of policy work.

- City rules and buffers: Auburn currently allows indoor home grows of up to six plants with police-chief approval and permits use by qualifying medical cardholders. For retail, staff modeled a 600-foot buffer from schools and youth facilities based on earlier medical-cannabis legislation; staff said applying that buffer to recreational retail narrows potential sites in the city.

- Potential sites: Staff identified three candidate areas for retail: the Nevada Street corridor near the city’s northern limits, parts of the Highway 49/Palm Avenue corridor (excluding one strip the council asked staff not to consider), and a High Street corridor area outside the central tourist node. Staff said they favored commercial or industrial zones and noted limited industrial land in Auburn.

- Market and revenue examples: Staff showed neighboring cities’ budget estimates for local cannabis excise taxes (presented for the 2025–26 fiscal year) and said a single dispensary could place in the city’s top 10 local tax producers, possibly top 5 depending on yield. Staff cited Grass Valley and Nevada City as examples that both receive local tax revenue and have used state cohort grants for community projects. Staff also reported Marysville’s local tax rate at about 6% and that Nevada City had received grants in the millions for community projects.

- Grants and mitigation: Staff described state grant programs that nearby cities have used to fund youth prevention programs, parks, fire mitigation and equipment, and other community enhancements tied to a nexus with legalized retail. Staff said some cities have used grant funds for school-related projects, skate-park expansions, capital improvements for fire departments and abatement projects in wildland areas.

Public comment and operator perspectives

A resident who said they had followed Colorado’s experience argued for permitting retail locally to retain tax revenue for Auburn, noting that “people are buying marijuana regardless of if we’re selling it or not, and that money is going to a whole another city when it should be going to our city.”

An operator who identified themselves as affiliated with Elevation in Nevada City described experience operating a combined medical and adult-use dispensary. The operator said medical sales formed a small share of overall sales and that many medical purchases are by 18-to-21-year-olds with recommendations; when asked about medical sales share, the operator said it was roughly 5%.

Process and next steps

Staff said they will combine the input from this workshop, a prior in-person meeting and the online survey to prepare recommendations for the city council at its first October meeting. Topics staff said they expect to present to council include suggested license caps (by count or per-capita triggers), an approach to buffers from schools and youth facilities, whether to allow delivery as a support to brick-and-mortar retailers, and draft operator-selection criteria for an application process (including community involvement and local experience).

The workshop included an interactive poll of participants on preferred license counts; staff said the most common responses clustered around one to four licenses given Auburn’s small land area.

Quotes tied to meeting speakers

- “This has been a long time coming,” said the staff member leading the workshop, describing nearly two years of work and a prior January meeting that fed into the current outreach.

- “People are buying marijuana regardless of if we’re selling it or not, and that money is going to a whole another city when it should be going to our city,” said a resident who urged Auburn to permit retail so excise tax and other revenues would remain local.

- “We are a medical and adult use dispensary at Elevation in Nevada City,” said an operator who described the local market and said medical sales represented a small share of total sales.

Limitations and outstanding questions

Staff and participants noted several open questions the workshop did not resolve: exact license-count thresholds for Auburn, whether to require delivery as part of any retail license, how to structure operator selection (local preference vs. open solicitation), whether drive-through service should be allowed under state rules, and how to apply buffers in complex downtown topography. Staff also noted state delivery services currently advertise into Auburn from Sacramento, which complicates local access-control goals.

Staff reiterated the survey deadline (5 p.m. next Wednesday) and said collected responses and comments will inform the staff report presented to the council in October.