WATSONVILLE — With cannabis-related businesses in full swing in California, the matter will return to the Watsonville City Council Tuesday to consider text amendments to the city’s ordinance regarding sign standards, hours of operation, separation requirements and more. According to a staff report by Associate Planner Ivan Carmona and Community Development Director Suzi Merriam, the council added a new chapter to the Watsonville Municipal Code providing regulations for medical cannabis cultivation and manufacturing in the city in 2017 and repealed its prohibition on recreational cannabis businesses a year later. In 2020, the council voted to amend the code to, among other things, increase the cannabis cultivation canopy from 5,000 to 22,000 square feet, increase manufacturing permits from nine to 15, allow processing and nursery permits under the cultivation permit, establish three new cannabis retail permits within the industrial, industrial park and visitor commercial districts; require background checks for managers and owners only and create a 600 foot separation buffer from K-12 schools, parks, residential zones, legal residential uses, faith-based facilities, licensed day cares, preschools and libraries.
Last summer, city staff met with cannabis business owners to discuss the current regulatory structure and how the ordinance might be revised again to be more efficient and effective, Carmona and Merriam wrote. The city also held a study session at the Oct. 10 counci.
