Recently, several California cities have expanded, or have considered expanding, retail cannabis operations within their jurisdictional boundaries. For example, last month the City of Monterey welcomed its first cannabis dispensary, and the City of Woodland also saw the opening of the first dispensary in town. In the last few weeks, the City of Redondo Beach has moved closer to allowing two cannabis dispensaries to enter the city limits, and the City of San Pablo Planning Commission has recommended that the city council approve amending the city’s zoning ordinance to allow for up to three cannabis retail stores to operate within city limits. The City of Lancaster is considering a permit for a proposed cannabis retail business, and over two years after its city council first voted to explore allowing legal retail sales, the City of Manteca finally saw the opening of its first storefront dispensary last month. Yet despite these recent expansions of retail access, most cities and counties in California continue to ban retail cannabis operators. In fact, according to the California Department of Cannabis Control, as of February 2025, 57% of California cities and counties do not allow any retail cannabis businesses, resulting in California having one of the lowest rates of retail stores per capita in the nation among states that support adult-use sales. Addressing one cannabis retail pathway, the Medicinal Cannabis Patients’ Right of Access Act, SB 1186 (2022), which took effect on January 1, 2024, requires cities and counties to allow deliveries of medical cannabis within their borders, and it does have a mechanism by which patients can sue jurisdictions if they cannot access their medicine in a “timely and readily accessible manner.” As I blogged about last year, a few jurisdictions have moved to change their code to follow SB 1186, but many jurisdictions have not. Thus, even with some cities expanding retail access to legal cannabis, including those cities mentioned above, the 4% overall decrease in local retail cannabis business bans over the past eighteen months (61% in August 2023 to 57% in February 2025) has been marginal and certainly inadequate to address the illicit market problem exacerbated by these bans.
