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Rules Committee advances cannabis ordinance amendments, directs Office of Cannabis to review security and good-neighbor plans
Summary
The Rules Committee moved amendments to permit a smoother transition for medical cannabis dispensaries to adult use, ordered edits to require medical-retail obligations and sent the amended file to the full Board while retaining a duplicate file for further work on delivery and commissary rules.
San Francisco's Board of Supervisors Rules Committee on Nov. 13 advanced several amendments to a broad ordinance regulating commercial cannabis activity and directed staff to prepare additional draft language for the full Board.
Supervisor Asha Safae, chair of the Rules Committee, said the committee's goal is to be prepared for Jan. 1's scheduled start of adult-use sales while ensuring existing medical cannabis dispensaries (MCDs) meet standards for neighborhood safety. Safae told the committee she wanted management and security plans and good-neighbor policies refiled and reviewed as part of temporary permitting so the Office of Cannabis and the Police Department could assess operators prior to wider adult-use rollout.
Nicole Elliott, director of the Office of Cannabis, told the committee that Article 33 of the Health Code currently governs MCDs and that Department of Public Health would continue enforcement for Article 33 until an operator obtains an Article 16 retail permit. Elliott said her office will develop implementing rules and regulations and that, while she expects many current operators will be able to resubmit existing plans quickly, she could not commit to reviewing all plans before Jan. 1.
Deputy City Attorney John Gibner told the committee the clarifying edits Safae proposed could be prepared as nonsubstantive amendments and added tomorrow without delaying first reading. The committee accepted Supervisor Jeff Sheehy's amendments on supply chain, compassion and on-site consumption and ordered city attorneys to draft strengthening language on medical access and director rulemaking.
Committee members moved two textual edits ' replacing the word "authorizes" with "requires" in two places of the draft ordinance ' to ensure retail permittees are required to meet certain medical-retailer obligations. The committee also agreed to split the legislative file: one amended version will be forwarded to the Board of Supervisors with a full recommendation for tomorrow's meeting, while a duplicate portion of the file covering delivery models, commissary uses and ownership-change thresholds will remain in committee for further work.
The committee's actions were taken "without objection," and Safae closed the special meeting after public comment. The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to receive the committee report the next day.
What happens next: city attorneys will prepare the specific amendment language for the Board packet and the duplicate file will return to committee for follow-up on delivery permits, shared-manufacturing (commissary) rules and ownership thresholds.
