Cathedral City adopts 45‑day moratorium on new cannabis permits after surge of odor complaints

Cathedral City’s City Council on Wednesday adopted an interim urgency ordinance temporarily halting most new cannabis-related permits and approvals for 45 days, following months of resident complaints about odors from cultivation facilities. The measure passed unanimously with all five council members voting yes.

City staff framed the moratorium as an urgency measure intended to give the city time to study code changes and odor standards. “If we look at the data across 2024, we’ve had about 38 complaints in the first three months of the year, which increased to over 900 over the balance of the year, including 501 in December 2024 alone,” Andrew Firestein, director of community and economic development, told the council during a staff presentation. Firestein added that January 2025 complaints had already exceeded December’s total.

Council members and public speakers said the rise in complaints — and continuing neighborhood impacts — require immediate action. “Quality of life is the most important thing I think this council believes in,” Council Member Lam said during deliberations. Dozens of residents who live near the Ramon Road facility and other sites described headaches, coughing and an inability to enjoy outdoor spaces because of odors.

Why the council acted: staff told the council the city’s cannabis regulations date to 2017, established by ordinances 800, 801 and 802, and are codified across multiple sections of the municipal code (Title 5 for licensing, Title 9 for zoning, Title 13 for enforcement). Those provisions were amended most recently in 2022, Firestein said, but the city has continued to receive mounting odor complaints tied primarily to cultivation operations and, to a lesser extent, manufacturers.

What the moratorium covers and key exceptions: the draft urgency ordinance blocks approvals for new local cannabis licenses, new conditional use permits (CUPs), permits for cannabis lounges or events, and any permit or modification that would increase operation size or intensity. Exceptions spelled out in staff’s presentation include: - Applications that were complete and submitted with all fees by 4:30 p.m. on the day the ordinance was introduced may continue to be processed and, under the draft language, could be approved. Incomplete applications submitted before that deadline will not qualify for the exemption. - Transfers of ownership that do not increase operations. - Permits that do not result in an increase in cannabis-related activity (for example, a minor tenant improvement or a bathroom repair). - Modifications that reduce cannabis uses or square footage, and renewals of existing licenses.

Staff and council repeatedly clarified the difference between building-stage permits and cannabis licensing. Firestein used one local company as an example: the operator on Ramon Road (identified in public comment as C4 Industry). He said the business has a CUP and building permits for a first building and is operating under a temporary certificate of occupancy for that first building; staff’s reading of the draft ordinance would allow completion and issuance of the certificate of occupancy for that first building. A second building for the same operator has a shell permit on file but does not yet have tenant-improvement permits nor a separate cannabis license; that second building would be frozen under the moratorium until the council or staff process allows otherwise.

Public comment: more than a dozen residents and industry representatives spoke. Several residents described health symptoms and repeated exposure to odors near outdoor-resort and residential areas; Michelle Sharon Collier, who identified herself as a Desert Sands resident of 36 years, told the council: “The stench from the facility is affecting my health. I am an asthmatic. My husband and I can’t escape the smell.” Mary Ellen Muir challenged the city’s reliance on industry testing and wrote in part that “you’re letting C4 say it’s 90% effective,” referring to a filtration system reported by staff.

Industry representatives and property owners asked the council to preserve processing for applicants already in the queue. Kevin Spring, who said he operates a distribution business that submitted a CUP just before the completeness deadline, asked council to “consider that people who have already started a project shouldn’t be held up in the last moment.” Paula Turner of the Coachella Valley Cannabis Alliance Network said CVCAN “generally supports the city’s endeavors” and asked that retail, lounges, distributors and testing labs be excluded from any extended moratorium because, in her view, properly engineered retail and distribution facilities generally do not generate odor complaints.

Next steps: staff recommended — and council accepted — that if the interim moratorium is adopted, city staff will return on Feb. 26 with a strategic plan for how to conduct code review, public engagement and technical study during the moratorium. Firestein told council the work could include reexamining zoning (including how “resort residential” is treated), standard conditions of approval, odor-control requirements, possible separate permits for odor-control systems, and additional monitoring. The city attorney explained the legal framework allowing an urgency moratorium when there is a finding of a current and immediate threat to public health, safety or welfare; the attorney also noted the initial 45‑day moratorium may be extended twice with the same findings and vote for a combined maximum of two years.

Votes at a glance: the council adopted the interim urgency ordinance imposing a temporary 45‑day moratorium on approval of new cannabis licenses, permits, or entitlements that increase cannabis operations. Vote: yes — Council Member Carnivale; Council Member Lam; Council Member Ernesto Gutierrez; Mayor Pro Tem Gregory; Mayor Nancy Ross. Mover/second: not specified on the record. Outcome: approved.

What council emphasized: members repeatedly framed the moratorium as a first, emergency step to halt new or expanding cultivation and similar activities while the city compiles data, engages residents and the industry, and researches code changes. Firestein said enforcement officers and police are conducting nightly patrols and inspections to gather “hard data” that will inform the February report. Staff also said the city has coordinated with the Department of Cannabis Control and other Coachella Valley jurisdictions on enforcement and odor‑control practices.

The council’s adoption of the urgency ordinance freezes most new cannabis expansion pending study, but the ordinance’s exemptions mean some projects already complete and fully filed by the 4:30 p.m. deadline may continue. Council set Feb. 26 as the return date for a detailed plan on code changes and community engagement; any extension of the moratorium would require the same findings and vote.