City Staff Recommends Expansion of School Buffer Zone, Other Changes in Cannabis Regulations

City Council also will address Wednesday the question of whether 24/7 on-site security should continue to be required at Martinez's two dispensaries; study session is planned on special event policy

Responding to rising public concerns about teen marijuana use, city staff proposes expanding the minimum buffer zone between cannabis dispensaries in the city and schools, daycares and youth centers from the current state minimum of 600 feet to 1,000 feet. It would also apply the buffer to other sensitive locations.

The proposal is among of suite of proposed modifications to the city’s cannabis ordinance, including security standards, that the City Council is expected to take up at Wednesday’s meeting.

The council was supposed to address the item at its Dec. 20 meeting but postponed it when the meeting dragged on until midnight, in large part because the first two hours were devoted to community outrage over the latest incidents involving PBF Energy’s Martinez refinery (over which the city has no jurisdiction). The council did allow public comments on the issue, however, before adjourning the meeting shortly after midnight.

The staff report detailing proposed modifications to the ordinance has since been updated to include the expanded school buffer zone (which would match the standard currently in Contra Costa County’s ordinance for unincorporated areas), as well as a security provision requested by the Martinez Unified School District.

The updated proposal would add a new buffer requirement of 1,000 feet from parks, playgrounds, colleges, universities and libraries, as well as expand the current 600-foot buffer from schools (kindergarten through grade 12), daycares and youth centers to 1,000 feet.

As to the reason for the new proposed buffer, the staff report reads:

The recommended changes to the buffer requirements are due in part to feedback from Craig Lazzeretti, the Martinez Unified School District, and the Public Health Institute.

Contra Costa County’s health officer, Dr. Ori Tzvieli, also recommended an expanded buffer zone in comments he delivered to the City Council on the issue at the Dec. 21 council meeting. “We recommend keeping buffer zones as large as possible,” he said.

Tzvieli, who spoke earlier in the meeting regarding the ongoing health concerns related to incidents at the refinery, called back into the meeting at midnight to express his support for efforts to shield youths from marijuana exposure, noting the impact it has on the developing brains and connection with anxiety and mental health issues, which have emerged as a major nationwide topic of concern for youths in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tzvieli noted that “all of our surveys” are showing greater use of cannabis products by youths, including 28% of 11th graders reporting marijuana use. He said that between five and 10 Alhambra High Students had been referred to the county health department for marijuana-related issues over the past year.

The staff report states that the city’s two existing dispensaries, Embarc on Alhambra Avenue and Velvet on Sunrise Drive, currently comply with the proposed 1,000-foot buffer. But while Embarc is located roughly 1,000 feet from Alhambra High School, it borders the Martinez Adult Education campus. The staff report leaves unclear whether the buffer would apply to the MAE campus; and, if so, whether it would only apply to future dispensary applicants, given that Embarc’s approval was granted under the current state-minimum buffer standards that don’t apply to adult education facilities.

Embarc’s application was approved by the City Council in 2020 over the strident opposition of the Martinez Unified School District, whose then superintendent, CJ Cammack, attended multiple council meetings to speak out against the proposal. Current Superintendent Helen Ross, then Cammack’s assistant, also asked the council to deny Embarc’s application at a 2020 meeting.

In a press release issued by the school district at the time, Cammack wrote:

Although students won’t directly access the products of the dispensary due to strict industry regulations, there are concerns about having any business on a shared property border that requires extensive security provisions and multiple security guards. Additionally, the current location may limit the potential uses of the Martinez Adult School property. In prior years, the Adult School housed a preschool, and more recently overflow parking for Alhambra High School, both of which the district could not operate in good conscience if a cannabis dispensary is opened on this shared property border.

The issue of security standards figures to be a major topic of discussion on Wednesday, as the city is also suggesting the council reconsider the ordinance requirement for 24/7 on-site security at the dispensaries. Despite the requirement being clearly spelled out in the current ordinance passed by the council 2019, it wasn’t enforced until after the fatal August officer-involved shooting of a 20-year-old burglary suspect, Tahmon Wilson, at Velvet, where no security guards were present. When asked by this newsletter after the shooting why the ordinance requirement hadn’t been enforced, Martinez City Manager Michael Chandler explained that the police command staff at the time had waived the requirement in approving the dispensaries’ security plans, which are kept confidential.

The staff report notes that a survey conducted by the city’s cannabis consulting firm found that only three other Bay Area jurisdictions with retail cannabis dispensaries currently require 24/7 on-site security (Fairfield, Suisun City and Vacaville). In the staff report, the city suggests that a “more flexible approach representative of best practices would allow for the increasing or decreasing of the number and times for on-site security guards to be required, based upon crime trends and the success of deterrent measures, such as target hardening, remote surveillance, and random patrols, and issued at the discretion of the City Manager and Chief of Police jointly.”

However, since the idea of eliminating the 24/7 on-site security requirement was first floated before the Dec. 20 council meeting, another fatal police encounter has occurred outside a Bay Area dispensary that lacked 24/7 on-site security. Oakland police officer Tuan Le, 36, was shot and killed Dec. 29 responding to an overnight burglary call at a dispensary in that city.

In a Dec. 20 email to Chandler, MUSD’s Rossi requested that if the 24/7 on-site security requirement is dropped, “then I would ask that at Embarc, security remain until after the MAE programs end, Monday through Thursday evenings at 9:15 p.m., in order to ensure the safety of the students who attend.” Staff is recommending that the council incorporate this request into an amended ordinance if it chooses to end the 24/7 on-site security requirement.

The staff report, however, stops short of recommending that the council drop the 24/7 requirement. Instead, it says that in weighing such a decision, “the council should consider the impact a reduced on-site security presence could have on the demand for finite law enforcement resources.”

The Police Department grappled throughout 2023 with a staffing crisis, a situation that was exacerbated when four officers involved in the Velvet shooting were put on leave pending the outcome of independent investigations into the case.

The updated proposals in the staff report still fall short of what was requested by the Public Health Institute, which lobbies for responsible local cannabis policies designed to protect youths. For instance, staff is proposing that new cannabis business applicants “propose specific measures to address diversity, equity, and inclusion.”|

A letter to the city by the Public Health Institute requested the following:

Rather than simply requiring that cannabis business applicants propose specific measures to address diversity, equity, and inclusion, the City of Martinez should establish social equity policies that explicitly prioritize social equity applicants for any open cannabis business licenses offered in the future, or require licensees to be nonprofits with equity in hiring. Cannabis tax revenues should be allocated for youth programs or those that advance social, racial and economic equity.

The institute also strongly recommended that the city adopt Contra Costa County’s prohibition on flavored cannabis products intended for inhalation.

It is well-known that products with characterizing flavors (such as strawberry-banana or grape) are particularly attractive to youth and should be restricted. Similar provisions were recently adopted statewide for tobacco and overwhelming supported by the voters in their approval of Prop 31. Since Contra Costa’s landmark adoption of the prohibition, the evidence that flavors in cannabis products hook kids has grown substantially. Eighty percent of youth (ages 14-20) cannabis users who had ever used e-cigarettes used flavored products. … It is time to put in place the long-delayed guardrails on the cannabis kid’s menu.

All of the Public Health Institute’s recommendations, as well as the written comments submitted by myself and Superintendent Rossi, can be found at this link: https://legistarweb-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/attachment/pdf/2372654/Attachment_C_-_Public_Comments.pdf

Jason Soroosh, a policy research associate with the Public Health Institute, also called into the Dec. 20 meeting at midnight to reiterate the agency’s recommendations, including requesting that the city’s proposed ban on billboards advertising cannabis products apply to new as well as existing signs. Tzvieli, the county health officer, also addressed the issue of billboard advertising in his public comments, saying they should be limited to areas where no more than 15% of the people exposed to them are anticipated to be children.

Velvet has invested aggressively in billboard signage along Interstate 680 (where the city has no power to limit them), with at least three advertisements visible on traditional and digital billboards between Walnut Creek and Martinez.

During my own public comments on the issue, I pointed out that the city continues to prohibit dispensaries from being located within the Main and Ferry Street business districts but has placed no such restrictions on locating them near school zones and other youth-centered locations, calling it a “gross oversight” that placed the interests of the business community ahead of the city’s youths, and detracted from the image of our city in the same manner that the recent refinery incidents have. Embarc sits along a heavily traveled thoroughfare to and from Alhambra High School and other local schools, and at the time Velvet was approved, there was significant opposition because of the presence of an athletic facility serving youths (which has since closed) nearby.

I also stated my opinion that, based on the video footage released to date, the fatal officer-involved shooting at Velvet in August could have been prevented had Velvet complied with, and the city had enforced, the 24/7 on-site security requirement.

Velvet CEO Farid Harrison also spoke during public comment, saying his business is eager to collaborate on any security-related amendments to the ordinance that the city deems appropriate and that “I think we have made some adjustments within our own protocols over the last several months that we are still fine-tuning, but I think we’re in a very good place.” He also raised concerns about the detailed background check process that his business is required to go through when hiring employees, calling it “duplicative” and “laborious.”

Harrison, who had not previously commented publicly (as far as I can tell) on the fatal police shooting outside his dispensary, referred in his council comments to “some less-than-ideal circumstances we’ve been dealing with over the last several months,” thanking police for their support during this period.

Velvet Cannabis CEO Farid Harrison speaks about the proposed cannabis ordinance revisions at the Dec. 20 City Council meeting.

The public comments on the issue can be heard starting around the 4-hour, 43-minute mark of the council video at the following link: https://martinez.granicus.com/player/clip/2140?view_id=9&redirect=true&h=6d4a93f05d33ec47ad96c09aa59c8802

Other proposed modifications to the cannabis ordinance include:

• Explicitly prohibit temporary cannabis events, such as concerts or county fairs.

• Require posting on-site health information, subject to review and approval by the Planning Division.

• Prohibit on-site consumption in all cannabis businesses

• Add a requirement for any adult-use delivery business operating in Martinez to have a Martinez Commercial Cannabis Operating Permit

• Explicitly prohibit deliveries from terminating at parks, playgrounds, daycare centers, residences located on a school campus, workplaces involving trucking or transportation, or transit centers

• Use the term “adult-use” rather than “commercial” or “recreational” cannabis, to distinguish from medicinal cannabis

If the council chooses to proceed with updating the cannabis regulations, it will schedule a public hearing in February on a proposed Municipal Code amendment.

The staff report detailing the proposed modifications to the cannabis ordinance can be found at the following link: https://legistarweb-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/attachment/pdf/2378459/Staff_Report_-_Cannabis_Regulations.pdf

Also at Wednesday’s meeting, the council is scheduled to receive a report and hold a discussion about the city’s Climate Action Plan and sustainability programs. Before the regular meeting, it will hold a special study session at 6 p.m. regarding revisions to its special event policy and special events for the 2024 calendar year.

The proposed calendar for 2024 city-sponsored events is as follows:

The regular council meeting follows starting at 7 p.m.

The agendas for both meetings can be found at the following link: https://www.cityofmartinez.org/government/meetings-and-agendas