SLO County Officials Change Marijuana Laws — ‘Big Relief,’ Owner Says

The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday lifted the requirement for a five-year renewal of a cannabis cultivation permit.

The 5-0 majority vote will now make it easier for county growers to continue operating.

County officials held a hearing on proposed changes to the Land Use and Coastal Zone Ordinance that would modify cannabis cultivation permit regulations and change cannabis delivery hours in the county.

Previously, regulations required applicants to renew permits every five years.

“When San Luis Obispo County started implementing marijuana regulations, they were pretty onerous, and one of the things was that you had to renew your grow license every five years,” said Dawn Ortiz-Legg, San Luis Obispo County District 3 Supervisor.

According to county officials, the cannabis cultivation permits expired five years after the approval date.

Applicants can renew their permits, but the process can be lengthy and expensive.

“We had a situation where we would allow (cannabis) to be grown and they would get a permit, but by the time they got the other building permits and everything else, it was probably a year or two years later and their five-year deadline was still running out,” Ortiz-Legg said.

Austen Conella, owner of SLOCAL Roots in San Luis Obispo County, says the permit application process was long.

“Our land use process took almost three years to get that initial approval, and then there was another year, year and a half of preparation before we could actually move forward,” said Austen Connella, owner and CEO of SLOCAL Roots. “If we had to go through that land use process again, it could have been another one to two-year process.”

Cannabis growers are inspected by officials quarterly throughout the year.

“With the five-year contract renewal coming up this month, this last-minute amendment to the regulation came as a huge relief.”

County officials also extended marijuana delivery hours in unincorporated areas of San Luis Obispo County, which were previously open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

However, current state law allows marijuana deliveries between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., and county officials agreed and passed the regulation because other counties surrounding San Luis Obispo County have such laws.

“We were losing customers to other counties, so now we all have the same rates from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. for marijuana deliveries,” Ortiz-Legg said.