Next steps for South Lake Tahoe's cannabis ordinance

The City of South Lake Tahoe was set to start accepting development agreement applications for the six cannabis licenses up for grabs after City Council approved a cannabis ordinance on August 21, 2018.

That is on hold after 1,687 signatures were gathered and submitted to the South Lake Tahoe city clerk's office to prevent the ordinance from taking effect for now. Only 1,019 signatures were needed but those collecting the signatures wanted to make sure they had enough.

Supporters of the referendum that stops the process for adult-use cannabis businesses to open in South Lake Tahoe. They want Tahoe Wellness Cooperative to be able to operate as an adult-use dispensary in the same way they operated as a medical-use dispensary which was not allowed in the new ordinance.

Tahoe Wellness Cooperative is grandfathered in to continue the same medical-use operation in the same location, but owner Cody Bass wants to become an adult-use cannabis dispensary and continue providing all types of service he offers. There is no adult-use license available for everything Tahoe Wellness Cooperative does for medical marijuana including on-site consumption, retail sales, cultivation and extraction.

The newly approved set of rules had allowed for two retail sales locations, two micro-businesses and two cultivation businesses. Bass can apply for any of those licenses, but to conduct operations as a microbusiness he'd have to move from his current building, which he said he just purchased. That location is not zoned for microbusinesses under the new ordinance.

The signatures in support of the referendum have been turned into the El Dorado County elections office and are being counted. They have 30 working days to count a random sample of 500 of the 1,687 signatures. When completed they will turn in the results to the city clerk.

On the day the signatures were submitted there were 10,182 registered voters in the city limits, and the required 1,019 is ten percent of that figure.

If the random sample of 500 signatures results in 110 percent or more being valid registered voters, the process stops and results are turned into the clerk. If between 95 and 110 percent, results are sent to the clerk and she responds with a request for a full check or partial check of the signatures. If less than 95 percent are valid signatures, the referendum fails to qualify.

City Council is the validator of the record, the County is used to count and validate signatures. They bill the city for staff time used in the tabulations.

The City is waiting for the count of the random sampling to be completed before addressing the situation.

"If the signatures qualify then the Council will explore our options," said SLT Mayor Wendy David. "If the signatures fail to qualify there is no further action needed by the Council."

If qualified, the City Council can decide to either repeal the ordinance and its regulations resulting in no ordinance for one year or send it all to the voters. It is too late for the 2018 election so a special election could be called in 2019 or they could wait until the 2020 general election.