Pot in Petaluma? Cannabis regualtions getting renewed look in near future

The city could update its cannabis regulations as early as June of this year.

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Two joints and a pizza? Right now if you were to buy cannabis within the legally “approved manner" in Petaluma your options are pretty limited.

But the city is looking to update its cannabis rules.

Petaluma city attorney Eric Danly described the city's current, fairly restrictive, rules.

"They allow personal cultivation, commercial testing, and manufacturing," Danly said. "They allow delivery only. That is not onsite sale retail. They allow that for up to two permitted businesses, and they do it in terms of location in the city, only in industrial and business park zones."

Those regulations could well change in the near future though - a change council member Brian Barnacle said is long overdue.

Sometimes in Petaluma. I feel like we're really leading on things. And then this topic comes up and I feel like I live in rural Alabama and this is Ronald Reagan's America, and it is embarrassing like how much we are pouring over this stuff.

The issue of empty storefronts came up in the council’s discussion, and while the city won’t see every vacant shop window bursting with buds within a month, the council did lend some verbal support to allowing three retail cannabis shops - a.k.a. dispensaries - within the city.

Claire Firestone, one of the proprietors of Farmhouse Artisan Market, a cannabis delivery company, based and operating in Petaluma, strongly supports incremental changes rather than a wholesale, long term overhaul of the city code.

Though well positioned to open a dispensary, Firestone says the city itself stands to gain from small changes in the city code, giving retail cannabis stores the go-ahead in the near future.

The approach not only streamlines the update to our existing ordinance, but also ensures that the city can swiftly benefit from significant tax revenues well over a hundred thousand dollars a year.

While no official action has been taken just yet, Petaluma's city council plans to revisit some of the city's cannabis regulations in June.