Keeley’s Cannabis pause falls flat with Santa Cruz City Council, business community
Tensions Rise as Mayor's Attempt to Delay Dispensary Decision Sparks Debate.
Santa Cruz Mayor Fred Keeley’s proposal Tuesday for a 45-day emergency moratorium on new cannabis business permits came with one eye on the particularly hot dispute surrounding an upcoming hearing over a dispensary application on Mission Street.
Yet, after criticism and questioning from city councilmembers and the business community, the mayor withdrew, resetting the stage for a May 14 city council decision over whether The Hook Outlet can open its shop in the old Emily’s Bakery building.
Tensions have flared over local retail cannabis operator The Hook Outlet’s plans for an 1129 Mission St. location, as some parents and school officials have claimed it is too close to Santa Cruz High School (it’s more than 200 feet farther than the required 600-foot buffer). An emergency moratorium, Keeley thought, would delay the council’s scheduled May 14 vote on the dispensary’s permits, and allow political leaders and the community to talk more holistically about existing cannabis policies — dealing with taxes, licensing, permitting and land use— before making a final call on The Hook Outlet.
Yet, The Hook Outlet’s owners did not want the moratorium; members of the business community and other cannabis operators did not want the moratorium; and city councilmembers, while agreeing with the merit of reexamining Santa Cruz’s cannabis laws, were confused why this rose to an emergency level and how the moratorium would protect the health, safety and welfare of the community.
An emergency moratorium requires support from six of seven city councilmembers. After Councilmembers Sonja Brunner and Sandy Brown commented that they couldn’t support it, Keeley asked the proposal to be withdrawn. This means the city council will stay on schedule to decide the appeal of The Hook Outlet’s dispensary on May 14.
The discussion around the moratorium turned into a debate around the merits of the proposed dispensary. Bryce Berryessa, owner of The Hook Outlet, several local cannabis operators from the likes of CannaCruz and 3 Bros, and Zöe Carter, executive director of the Santa Cruz County Business Council, argued that the moratorium would only harm The Hook Outlet by changing the process after the business already complied with, and in some cases exceeded, all of the city’s requirements to earn a permit.
“I’m concerned the goal posts are moving while [the process] is happening,” Carter told the city council, imploring the city’s political leadership to treat The Hook Outlet fairly in deciding the appeal.
Keeley seemed affected by the argument that a moratorium would unfairly disadvantage The Hook Outlet by delaying the process. In order to keep the city council on schedule to hear the dispensary appeal on May 14, the mayor attempted to change the moratorium to 35 days — ending just as officials take up the appeal — during which time the city council would form an ad-hoc committee to examine the nitty-gritty of city policies around cannabis taxes, licensing, public safety and land use.
Multiple councilmembers then questioned why an examination of city policies had to be done at relative lightning speed if the moratorium wasn’t going to affect The Hook Outlet’s May 14 appeal.
“If the outcome [of this analysis] is not necessarily going to impact [The Hook Outlet], then I don’t understand why this needs to be on an urgency timeline,” Brown said.
Brunner said a reassessment of the city’s cannabis policies needed to be a broader conversation with the community involved. She said Keeley’s proposal was the first emergency moratorium that had come up in her nearly four years on the city council. She criticized the proposal as unfair.
“I’m a little concerned that this is being proposed as an emergency to quickly analyze cannabis laws that exist,” Brunner said. “It’s always good to reassess, but to do it in this way, in a quick two-to-three-week period, I can’t support that.”
