With voters in the beach cities set to decide in the coming months whether to open their towns to commercial cannabis operations, elected officials there have found themselves in a balancing act — between continuing their objections to legal pot shops and figuring out how to make them as beneficial as possible if they do arrive.
It has been nearly a year since residents in the four cities filed initiatives with their respective governments, efforts largely underwritten by the Long Beach marijuana chain Catalyst Cannabis Co., to legalize marijuana sales and allow up to three dispensaries in each town.
Voters in El Segundo, Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach will decide on those initiatives during the Nov. 8 general election. Redondo Beach residents, at the moment, are set to decide the fate of dispensaries there on March 7.
And now, time is running short for city officials, who have largely decried the potential opening of marijuana stores, to figure out how to counter those initiatives — or pitch either competing or tandem proposals to voters. The competing proposals would be more modest versions of the Catalyst-driven initiatives while the tandem ones would aim to ensure the cities get as much financial benefit from dispensaries as possible.
But there’s also a chance that having multiple cannabis-related measures on the same ballot could confuse voters, limiting the ability of any one measure to gain traction in the battle for public backing.
Too many choices about the same issue on a single ballot would confuse voters no matter what, said Matt Lesenyie, assistant professor of political science at Cal State Long Beach.
At least one study, in fact, found just that, Lensenyie said.
That study looked at voters in the 1980s who faced five state ballot propositions about insurance, some backed by corporations and others by consumer-rights groups.
The study concluded that the wave of related initiatives proved too complicated for voters.
“Voters didn’t read all the” proposition language, Lesenyie said, “but they saw who was behind the measures and voted (based on) which group they liked (or resonated with) the best.”
That’s what Lesenyie said he expects to happen in the beach cities, if multiple cannabis measures end up on a single ballot.
City officials, meanwhile, also fear such competing or tandem measures — at least those that wouldn’t reiterate an outright ban — would be tantamount to supporting cannabis. Particularly since Catalyst seems more than willing to back a city-sponsored initiative to allow dispensaries.
“Catalyst would support any item the council would put forward that would allow for some cannabis in town,” CEO Elliot Lewis said during a recent Manhattan Beach City Council meeting. “I think it would be progress (in what we’re trying to accomplish as) activists in this space” of broadening legal access to marijuana.
The upcoming ballot measures have made the beach cities the latest front in an ongoing battle over marijuana in California, a fight that has lingered since 2016, when a voter-approved initiative legalized recreational pot across the state but allowed cities to continue banning commercial cannabis via their zoning laws.
Rather than end the debate over marijuana, however, the state initiative simply created a new phase: Dispensaries have proliferated in some cities, typically the more liberal ones, like Long Beach and Los Angeles, but have been blocked from many others, including the beach cities, Torrance, Gardena and Compton.
But the initiative process, which any resident who is a registered voter can begin, has underscored the limits of a city’s power.
At its core, the debate has hinged on whether marijuana is safe, the type of message children will get about the drug if they see dispensaries operating legally and how the shops will change the surrounding neighborhoods.
But there are also questions about whether the current initiatives represent the will of voters or special interests, whether legal dispensaries are safer alternatives to the black market — and whether cannabis stores can be a financial boon to cities.
The state’s 1,500 licensed pot retailers, after all, generated $1.3 billion in state tax revenue last year.
While the generally well-off beach cities may find the tax revenue a less persuasive argument than other towns, they aren’t entirely ignoring it either.
Manhattan Beach, for its part, is weighing myriad options — including a tax.
The City Council will decide on Tuesday, July 19, whether to place on the November ballot a proposal to tax cannabis businesses if voters allow up to three dispensaries by approving the Cannabis Industry Measure.
At the same time, however, the Manhattan Beach council will also weigh whether to place a competing measure on the ballot that would maintain the city’s ban on commercial cannabis. Yet another measure the council could opt to send to voters would limit the number of dispensaries to one.
But Manhattan Beach council members, during a recent meeting, expressed concern about any measure they pursue potentially leading voters to falsely believe the city’s leadership supports bringing in cannabis businesses.
“I’m worried it looks like we support pot shops through the (measure) that’s supposed to limit them,” Councilwoman Hildy Stern said during the meeting. “I don’t want confusion to result in more advocacy to promote pot shops.”
Hermosa Beach councilmembers, when voting to oppose the residents-led cannabis initiative in May, had also been wary that a city-sponsored tax measure could make voters think the local government supports cannabis sales.
“My guess is (proponents will) start advocating for that ballot measure,” Hermosa Councilwoman Stacey Armato said at the time, “using us as the reason why everyone should support it.”
Voters don’t typically do a lot of research, Lesenyie said. Rather, they only go as deep as seeing which groups or people support a given measure, he said – and vote based on their perspectives on those backers.
“Voters are going to go see who’s speaking on the issue,” Lesenyie said, “and make a snap judgment.”
Some people also already agree with Catalyst – or allowing cannabis dispensaries in general — while others who don’t visit dispensaries or recognize any interest groups may view the Long Beach chain as just another corporation trying to make a cash grab, the professor added.
In the beach cities, where residents are typically more conservative and wealthier, voters would be more likely to favor keeping things the way they are, Lesenyie said.
If city councils don’t want their fingerprints on legalizing marijuana, he added, it would make more sense to let voters decide on the Catalyst-backed measure and, if anything more, add a measure to tax cannabis sales if it becomes legal.
“If I were advising them,” Lesenyie said, “I’d say, ‘Yeah, we want those tax receipts.”
Catalyst, meanwhile, doesn’t seem to have such concerns about optics. The company, Lewis said, would indeed back city-authored measures to allow dispensaries on a smaller scale.
“Progress is progress,” Lewis said.
The El Segundo City Council, for its part, has already done what Lesenyie suggested.
The panel voted last month to place a cannabis business tax measure on the November ballot, City Attorney Mark Hensley said. And it previously placed on that ballot a cannabis measure to compete with the Catalyst-backed one; the city proposal would limit stores to east of Pacific Coast Highway while the outside initiative would allow dispensaries along and west of PCH.
And in Redondo Beach, the council later this month will consider adopting a draft ordinance to legalize and regulate marijuana sales from its cannabis steering committee — without bothering with a ballot measure.
Voters, though, would still have a say in the matter.
If the council passes a cannabis ordinance, City Attorney Mike Webb said, it would become law 30 days after its adoption. Voters will then decide later whether to replace the city-written ordinance with the citizen’s initiative. (That measure is set for the March ballot, but could be moved up if the council decides to have voters weigh it at the same time as a Catalyst-supported recall of Councilman Zein Obagi Jr.)
Voters, indeed, are the wildcard.
Damian Martin, a Catalyst partner and attorney, declined to comment on where the company may pursue similar initiatives – though, based on its track record, future efforts elsewhere seem possible.
Catalyst officials, however, have said polls they have taken have consistently shown public support for dispensaries in the beach cities.
But Redondo Beach Mayor Bill Brand has seemed doubtful of that — at least for his city.
“I have not had a lot of people asking me to hurry up and get a cannabis store in Redondo Beach,” Brand said late last year. “It’s not exactly been a priority for the residents I’ve talked to and that I know are engaged.”
