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Supervisors advance medical cannabis rules, clarify notification and permit process
Summary
The Board of Supervisors approved amendments on first reading to the city—ode regulating medical cannabis dispensaries, keeping criminal background checks, adjusting notification distances, and creating provisional permits to let property owners learn permit outcomes before major investments.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Aug. 8 approved on first reading a set of amendments to the city's medical cannabis dispensary law that clarified notice distances, retained criminal background checks, and created a provisional-permit step intended to reduce financial risk for dispensary applicants.
The ordinance amendments, introduced by Supervisor Mercarini, passed after an amendment of the whole was approved 9-1. Mercarini said the changes respond to interdepartmental feedback after the board—s lengthy original regulation that took effect in January 2006, and to correct what he called "a lot of disinformation that's been put out there." He emphasized: "criminal background checks have been retained," and said the amendments do not reduce public-notification protections.
Why it matters: The ordinance package rewrites portions of the health, planning and building review process for medical cannabis dispensaries (MCDs) to align planning and public-health practices, to set clearer standards for places of assembly and fire-code consistency, and to allow a…
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