A Sacramento City Council committee on Tuesday put on hold a proposal to increase the maximum number of cannabis dispensaries by half after current owners said the market is oversaturated.
City staff recommended raising the cap from 40 to 60 to give more participants in the city's cannabis equity program opportunities to start businesses. However, the council's law and legislation committee said Sacramento first needs to expand where dispensaries can be located.
Sacramento's Cannabis Opportunity Reinvestment and Equity Program (CORE) helps people disproportionately affected by the war on drugs enter the legal cannabis industry. Participants include those who live or have lived in a low-income Sacramento household and were or have family members who were arrested for cannabis-related charges.
Crystal Nugs Dispensary and Delivery CEO Maisha Bahati said it took her two years and eight months to open her business, which has one of the 10 permits the city approved reserving for CORE participants in 2020. About 100 of more than 390 participants applied for the permits, according to a staff report, and many since then have asked the city for more storefront opportunities.
"I don't agree with the idea of releasing a bunch of licenses and letting the nature of the industry decide who sinks or swims," Bahati said. "Because that wasn't the mission of the CORE to let people sink. The goal was to allow us to succeed and create generational wealth."
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