Napa pot group takes 1st step to legalize growing
A group of Napa entrepreneurs from the wine and weed industries are seeking to make it legal to grow cannabis in the county for sale in stores. They turned in signatures Tuesday in a bid to put a measure on the March 2020 ballot.
The petition gathered around 8,100 signatures, more than the 6,635 needed, according to the Napa Valley Cannabis Association, which wants cannabis and wine to coexist and counts vintners among its members. It asked voters if they support a proposed initiative that would greenlight cultivation of the plant for commercial use in unincorporated areas, which include more than 90% of Napa County.
Though marijuana is legal in California, Napa County has enacted legislation that bans compa
nies in the business of growing, processing or selling weed from setting up shop in the region. But members of the cannabis association argue there’s room for both cash crops.
“I’ve heard friends in other counties say, ‘We’re going to be the Napa of cannabis.’ I say, Napa should be the Napa of cannabis,” said Eric Sklar, a founding member of the trade group. He left the wine industry a decade ago and now owns a Lake County company that grows marijuana as well as a dispensary, Napa Valley Fumé (not to be confused with the Napa restaurant of the same name).
State law allows residents to grow up to six marijuana plants inside their homes for personal use. Napa County has one dispensary, a Napa store that sells cannabis for medical use only, and no licensed growers or distributors. After the state legalized pot in 2016, county supervisors put a temporary ban on commercial cannabis activity and outdoor cultivation in the unincorporated area. That ban was renewed in January 2018 and is still in effect.
Sklar, whose company grows cannabis north of his St. Helena home in Lake County, said the trade group decided to forge ahead with a ballot measure — potentially skirting the county’s board of supervisors, in doing so — 2½ years after the state legalized marijuana.
Members of the association have met with supervisors, invited them to industry events and tried to put the issue on the board’s meeting agenda for months, without success, according to the group’s president, Stephanie Honig, who leads public relations and international sales for the Honig Vineyard and Winery in Rutherford.
They say the Board of Supervisors has refused to come to the bargaining table.
“Two and a half years is plenty of time to give them a chance to do their job,” Sklar said, adding: “We ran out of patience, frankly.”
Supervisor Diane Dillon said the board has put off tackling this issue as it grapples with other priorities, including housing, fire recovery and construction of a $128 million jail.
“We have limited revenues . ... We therefore have limited staff time,” she said in an email. “We can’t add things to the ‘to do’ list just because a small group of people wants us to do so. We must prioritize based on the greater good.”
Supervisor Ryan Gregory, chairman of the board, said the issue is popular with residents. Nearly two-thirds of Napa County voters said yes to marijuana legalization in the 2016 election.
“Cannabis is coming whether people like it or not,” said Honig, whose family has grown grapes in Napa County for three generations, though it doesn’t plan to get into the marijuana business. “It’s not a question of ‘if.’ It’s a matter of how.”