Sausalito may have Marin’s first retail cannabis shop if voters approve a ballot issue set for November 2022. Its politically savvy owner’s strategy may be a template for other ambitious marijuana purveyors all over the county.
The business owner with the skills is Conor Johnston, formerly chief of staff to then-San Francisco Board of Supervisors president and now mayor, London Breed. Johnston is also co-owner of Berner’s on Haight, a cannabis dispensary in the City’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood.
He’s leading a new venture, Otter Brands, with a goal of opening a retail marijuana storefront in Sausalito. Johnston applied an innovative approach toward overcoming a countywide impasse so far preventing any retail pot shop from opening in any Marin municipality or unincorporated neighborhood.
That’s ironic since in 2016 when Proposition 64 was on California’s ballot, a 69.6% supermajority of Marin registered voters supported both decriminalizing personal use and possession of marijuana for adults over 21 and allowing its retail sale. Statewide, Prop. 64 passed with 57% voting yes. In liberal Sausalito, the measure received an overwhelming 77% approval rate.
Johnston understood that his efforts to open a dispensary would follow the same disappointing results other potential Marin cannabis entrepreneurs faced unless he pursued a different route.
His political and government experience made it obvious that it’s relatively easy to place any measure on Marin small-town ballots. In Sausalito, only 601 signatures of registered voters in the city are required. Johnston and his two partners, Chris Monroe, owner of the gym CrossFit Sausalito, and 40-year Sausalito resident Karen Cleary, did just that. They collected the needed signatures to put the issue directly before local voters, thus bypassing the City Council.
Once the Registrar of Voters verified the signatures, the council had little choice but to put the measure on the next municipal ballot, which they did in July.
Apply that 10% threshold to Marin’s smaller communities and the ease of going directly to the voters becomes clear. To obtain ballot access, it takes just 1,085 valid signatures in Mill Valley, 952 in San Anselmo, 713 in Corte Madera and 674 in Tiburon. Larger Novato and San Rafael have a bit more daunting, but not insurmountable, signature requirement of 3,418 and 3,290, respectively.
Otter Brands’ initiative incorporates enforceable promises that the operation won’t negatively impact Sausalito residents. That includes a minimum of $50,000 in annual tax revenue to the city. Regarding the location, Otter Brands’ website offers, “Most of the feedback we have received suggests that the north end of Marinship … makes the most sense.”
There’ll surely be objections in the ballot handbook from residents who fearin that even an adult-only cannabis outlet encourages teenagers to become addicted to weed. That’s a legitimate fear, but anyone with high school-age children knows marijuana has been and continues to be easily available without regard to the purchaser’s age in every Marin community.
The overkill in Johnston’s strategy is in the initiative’s fine print. It effectively guarantees that only Otter Brands can satisfy the measure’s eight strict criteria.
Here is just one of those rules any potential pot retailer must meet to become the sole outlet authorized. Requirement No. 8, “The applicant must have hosted or co-hosted at least two community outreach meetings in the City, attended at least three meetings of community organizations in the City, and met individually with one faith leader in the City to discuss their interest in operating a Storefront Retail Cannabis Retail Business in the City.”
It’s inconceivable that any entity other than Otter Brands could qualify.
While retail exclusivity might not survive a court challenge raised by a competitor for the lucrative franchise, litigation will likely rise only after Sausalito voters have their say.
