Marijuana sales are prohibited in Elk Grove. Would the city ever reconsider?

Davon Burdette enjoys a walk through the park on a nice day with his girlfriend and their dog. At some point in their outing, he breaks down some weed with his fingers, rolls it in a cigar leaf, lights up and chills out.

Burdette, a self-proclaimed “weed head,” will partake in marijuana activities on 420 on Saturday — after he gets off work, of course.

Burdette, 21, lived in Elk Grove but is no longer a resident. Still, he frequents his old stomping grounds, visiting one of the city’s many parks and trying different eating options. He likes to pick up his cannabis products from dispensaries before his Elk Grove excursions.

That’s because he has to. Elk Grove does not have a marijuana dispensary.

Elk Grove, a booming economy and suburb of Sacramento, initially disregarded the cannabis industry, outlawing dispensaries in the city limits in 2017 after recreational use was legalized by California’s Prop. 64 in 2016. (It does allow other cannabis products, such as those sold at Elk Grove CBD.)

Elk Grove public affairs manager Kristyn Laurence said in an email that the city’s ruling is largely a policy call.

“The City of Elk Grove strives to maintain a high quality of life for our residents and businesses, all consistent with state and local law,” Laurence wrote. “State law allows cities to regulate and/or prohibit commercial marijuana businesses, medical marijuana dispensaries, and outdoor marijuana cultivation. The City has prohibited all of these uses by local ordinance since 2017. There has been no direction from the City Council to consider changes to the ordinance to date.”

According to the California State Department of Cannabis Control, only 44% of cities and counties in the state allow at least one type of cannabis business , while 56% do not allow any. The department reported the only cities within Sacramento County to allow storefront or delivery retail marijuana businesses are the City of Sacramento and Isleton.

Elk Grove is among the remaining cities within Sacramento County that hardly wants anything to do with marijuana. Elk Grove bans dispensaries that sell the actual plant. You can’t buy marijuana.

However, it does have places that sell cannabidiol, or CBD, the oil that is extracted from cannabis products and does not create the high of weed. They contain only a tiny percentage of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, which is the ingredient that causes the high.

Other cities to outlaw marijuana retail sales and allow CBD are Citrus Heights, Folsom, Galt and Rancho Cordova.

“I feel like it’s just the white areas, I’m not trying to be racist or anything,” Burdette said. “I just feel like they just look at our use of it and think marijuana is a thug drug. I was in Folsom looking for a dispensary. They don’t have any dispensaries in Folsom. I don’t like going in the hood (for a dispensary).”

Burdette shops at many dispensaries around Sacramento but most recently at Sacramento Dispensary, formerly known as Off the Charts.

Burdette said he would probably buy that weed in Elk Grove if he could.

What went into Elk Grove’s marijuana prohibition?

Elk Grove residents who want to partake must continue to get their herb from outside of the city.

The city’s ordinance on cannabis said marijuana dispensaries and delivery of marijuana or cannabis to any location within Elk Grove is prohibited. Despite that, many delivery services outside of Elk Grove do make drop offs in the city, according to WeedMaps, an online directory for marijuana dispensaries and delivery services.

Elk Grove City Councilmember Darren Suen is the only current one who sat on the council in 2017 when the ordinance prohibiting marijuana was passed.

Suen said he voted not to allow marijuana stores in Elk Grove because it was still very new and the market was in its infancy.

“It wasn’t understood or known how the business would do, how it would affect the community, you know, all those things,” Suen said. “It was really new at that time. So there was just a lot of uncertainty and we didn’t feel a rush to adopt beyond what was allowed by the state at that time.”

He said that the city wanted to wait and see how the market fared with other jurisdictions.

Suen said public safety was another concern because the area had vacant homes used as grow houses in 2010.

“There was a lot of concern from EGPD,” Suen said. “I remember that time. I think at that time it was a safety blight, nothing was known for sure. It was just erring on the side of caution.”

He said he thinks the cannabis retail industry has matured since then.

Could Elk Grove see dispensaries in the near future?

Laurence said opening Elk Grove to dispensaries is a policy decision that would have to originate from the City Council.

“Previous Councils have asked that the City’s Municipal Code be structured in such a way as to prohibit these types of businesses,” Laurence said. “I am not aware of anyone on the current Council that is asking for this to be reconsidered.”

Suen said the city doesn’t have anything against the cannabis industry, but residents he’s talked to have not demanded it opening the door to marijuana dispensaries.

“Our constituents, neighbors, friends, and people who use it for medicinal purposes, for cancer, for anxiety, have all said that ‘we’re good, we don’t need it,’ or ‘we get our stuff delivered’ or they don’t mind driving to Sacramento,” Suen said. “The residents that I’ve spoken to… I have just not heard of them saying we need to have one of these cannabis stores closer.”

The common responses he said he hears are that people enjoy the idea that Elk Grove is viewed as a “family town.”

Suen said the only people he’s heard who want cannabis are those who own dispensaries and want to set up shop here.

And he doesn’t blame them, he said, because Elk Grove is an untapped market.

Suen said he no longer has the same concerns about the industry as he did seven years ago and didn’t rule out the possibility of a dispensary in Elk Grove.

”If... there was an overwhelming amount of residents that felt so strongly that they felt the need to have cannabis dispensaries in the city... that they were not satisfied with getting their cannabis in nearby cities or online, then I would be willing to, at least, have a conversation about it,” Suen said.

However,he said, “if my residents don’t see it as a burning desire then I’m not inclined to revisit it.”

‘Not a concern or need’

For now, dispensaries won’t be opening in Elk Grove.

Suen said that it isn’t a priority for the city, as cannabis doesn’t even make the city’s list.

Instead, he said, many residents have voiced concerns over homelessness, crime and traffic, and they’re most interested in more places to eat, shop and things to do.

Cannabis in Elk Grove has never been a priority Suen said, because the city never needed the source of revenue.

Residents voted to pass Measure E, a 1% sales tax increase in Elk Grove, making the city’s finances “very healthy, ” Suen said.

“Whether it’s restaurants coming or our auto mall, even more so when things like Nordstrom Rack open up, Whole Foods is coming, a smaller version of Macy’s is coming and Yard House. There’s all these things that will be opening up, that sales tax revenue will just increase,” Suen said. “Costco is already here and has been doing phenomenal. We have our revenue sharing from the Sky River Casino, that’s something unique. Sacramento doesn’t have that, so (cannabis) just hasn’t been a concern or a need.”

What’s to lose?

Some say otherwise and believe, the more, the merrier.

Aaron Andrew Grove, entrepreneur and owner of Elk Grove CBD, thinks the city should remove the moratorium that prohibits the retail sale of marijuana.

“It’s one of those subjects where it seems like on face value what’s to lose by implementing it,” Grove said. “What could they possibly lose by moving forward with it? So if they were to remove the moratorium, what would be the con of that? What would be the negative aspect of that?”

Grove believes cannabis would further stimulate the economy, on top of its current state.

“They’re getting extra traffic as we know the transaction of goods, that’s going to base the economy, and if we could simply create more supply of that (with dispensaries),” Grove said.

He disagreed with the notion that Elk Grove residents wouldn’t want a dispensary in town.

“The demand’s there,” Grove said. “I get calls everyday.”

Grove said that he would open a dispensary in Elk Grove, if permitted.

He said he would want to keep his CBD and a marijuana dispensary separated.

“If I was to ever do it (open a dispensary), I might consider doing it at a different location and not intermingling the two because this is more of a medical type of thing (Elk Grove CBD) where it’s like a clinic in that sense,” Grove said.

What’s Elk Grove CBD?

Elk Grove CBD, according to Grove, is the first and only dispensary of any kind in Elk Grove. He first opened the store at 6616 Laguna Blvd. in October 2019.

His store offers hemp CBD, which Grove simply describes as the healing without the high.

“Most people don’t want to get high...” Grove said. “THC products have to be specially formulated, according to the law, to even be offered in hemp retail format...That’s what I’m offering here.”

So can you legally get high from products at Elk Grove CBD?

Cannabis is a genus and has different species, Grove explained. You would need to take a lot of CBD, Grove said, for that to happen.

He does have other products that contain THC that can do the trick for customers, such as THC gummies and vapes.

Ray Tamayo is a customer who visits Elk Grove CBD to buy gummies.

“I use them to relax and take the edge off after a long day,” Tamayo said.

Grove, 40, has been in the cannabis industry for nearly 30 years. He was born in Las Vegas and raised there before living in the Bay Area for 20 plus years.

“I’ve been in the cannabis game for like 28 years and even before then, my mom was growing (plants)... in our backyard,” Grove said.

He lived in San Diego before moving to Elk Grove, where he learned about CBD.

He entered the industry because he wanted to help change people’s lives.

“I’m an expert,” Grove said. “I do thorough consultations with people that are dealing with serious issues, like chronic lifelong, life-threatening issues that I help them with. I’ve been holistically healing people for over a decade.”