San Francisco considers banning new Cannabis shops
A ban on new cannabis stores could be coming to San Francisco.
Ahsha Safai, the District 11 supervisor and newly announced San Francisco mayoral candidate, wants to ban new applications for pot shops in the city, limiting the number of stores to current shops and any retail applications that have already been filed. Safai told SFGATE that there's already enough pot stores in San Francisco.
“We’ve gotten to a point where the retailers themselves are asking for there to be a pause to allow the market to adjust,” Safai said. “So that’s where we are. They are oversaturating in certain areas and there are plenty of applications pending.”
The city currently has 70 licensed cannabis retailers, according to state data, with additional licenses still pending approval. The San Francisco Office of Cannabis was unable to immediately confirm how many additional applications are pending.
An SFGATE review of state and local data shows San Francisco currently has more pot shops per capita than other major California cities, with 8.5 legal retailers per 100,000 people. Los Angeles has 1.8, while San Diego has 2.6 stores per 100,000 people. However, San Francisco still lags behind other West Coast cities: Denver has 28 pot shops per 100,000 people, while Portland, Ore., has 34 pot shops per 100,000 people.
The mayoral hopeful’s proposal would indefinitely block any new retailers from receiving licenses in California’s fourth largest city. Safai originally proposed the legislation in 2020, but it was shelved during the COVID-19 pandemic. He said the San Francisco Cannabis Retailers Association requested the ban last year. A representative from the association told SFGATE in a statement, "This is good, common sense legislation that will support existing retailers struggling to make ends meet in the wake of over saturation and unchecked crime."
Safai said he was not worried about the proposal unfairly protecting existing shop owners from new competition. He then went on to say it was specifically designed to help those operators stay profitable.
“If we want the existing operators to survive, we have to allow for them an opportunity to be protected,” Safai said.
