The city of Vista is in the beginning stages of developing a cannabis equity program for people and communities that have been negatively impacted by the War on Drugs.
The city is asking for community feedback.
In 2022, the Vista City Council decided to have an equity study done, and earlier this year the city received a grant from the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz) through the Cannabis Equity Grants Program for Local Jurisdictions for that assessment.
There are 11 dispensaries in Vista, but the city isn’t looking to open more. Instead, the city wants to see what opportunities might exist for other cannabis-related industries like cultivation and how those could be managed equitably — especially for the people most affected by cannabis prosecution.
"The purpose of the meeting is to actually get community feedback, community input from areas that may have been impacted by equitable or inequities within the licensing process,” said Vista Councilmember Dan O'Donnell.
He said when the city opened the permitting process for dispensaries in 2018, there wasn’t a lot of information on how to make the process more inclusive. Instead, the city held a random drawing for those 11 permits.
According to a preliminary report by SCI Consulting Group, the firm contracted to do the assessment study, Black people make up 3% of Vista's population but accounted for 6% of cannabis-related arrests between 2014 and 2023.
“We're continuing to analyze the locations of cannabis arrests to kind of pinpoint specific areas within the city that have been impacted the most,” said Kyle Tankard, SCI senior consultant.
Arrest rates of other racial groups are more in line with their representation in the population, he said.
Tankard said the goal of the report is to help guide the city in establishing an equity program and that could mean anything from technical assistance to grants or loans — it depends on what the community says their needs are.
The city is hosting a community meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Morris B. Vance Community Room in City Hall. It's the first of several meetings. The next one will be held sometime in November or early December, Tankard said.
Earlier this summer, the city conducted an online survey to identify who the stakeholders are, and those individuals and groups will be contacted for one-on-one interviews, said Kathy Valdez, Vista's City Clerk.
Rex Bauer, the manager at Tradecraft Farms, one of the first dispensaries to open in Vista, sees the equity assessment as a positive thing for the city.
“I have enjoyed to watch the cannabis sector only flourish over the last few years, and I think it's going to be a big step in terms of adding that inclusivity that's needed here in Vista,” he said.
And that could be a boon for cannabis-related businesses in the city.
"I think that in the coming years, we might be seeing neighboring cities opening up to storefronts," Bauer said. "However, Vista can get ahead of those things by adding places like a lounge, like more inclusive areas for cannabis consumers, so that we can have a place to not only consume safely but continue to develop the sector as well."
O'Donnell said the city hopes that the assessment will identify the community needs so the council can draft better policies.
"Based on the equity study, what we can do for the future licenses," he said. "Whether it's cultivation, whether it's for cannabis lounges or different opportunities that are going to be coming available."
The report is expected to be completed by the end of the year and the City Council is expected to discuss the report's recommendations at its meeting next spring.
