Encinitas selects 4 applicants to operate cannabis business

Three Coast Highway 101 locations and one El Camino Real location have won the city’s cannabis retail business license lottery.

As the hour-and-a-half draw drew to a close on Friday morning, city planning manager Jennifer Gates said the next stage in the process would be a detailed application of the four winning businesses. City Review. Once the process is over, they will get a new license.

The four proposed locations, listed in the order in which they were selected in the lottery, are:

  • 1038 S. Coast Highway, in the middle of Encinitas’ downtown neighborhood. The northern end of the block contains fish shops, while the southern end is home to the Encinitas Ale House. The cannabis business applicant is Siesta Life Encinitas LLC.
  • 1030 N. Coast Highway, Leucadia location, just south of Diana Street and a little north of Le Papagayo restaurant. The applicant is SGI Encinitas AP LLC
  • 583 S. Coast Highway, a downtown location on the east side of the highway, just north of the E Street intersection, in the same block as the death of Tequila, Roxy, and Encinitas Cafe. The applicant is Humanity Encinitas 4 Inc.
  • 211 N. El Camino Real, located south of the Cotixan restaurant and north of the self-service car wash. It is located between the intersection of Mountain Vista Drive and Via Molena. The applicant is Ecrencinitas4 LLC.

Encinitas began taking steps to allow marijuana retail in 2020 when voters in the city approved Measure H, which allows four marijuana retail businesses as well as cultivation, manufacturing and distribution operations, subject to certain regulations and restrictions.

Applicants for a retail business license must submit an application to the city by February 2. 18 and the city received about 200. Preference is given to applicants with at least 12 months of experience as a cannabis business owner, 36 months as a pharmaceutical business owner and 18 months as an Encinitas business owner. The 171 applicants who met those three criteria were placed in the top tier in the lottery process, from which all four business applicants were selected Friday morning.

The sweepstakes took place in the City Council room at City Hall, which was not open to the public, but was broadcast live on the city’s website. Most of the process seemed to be going well, but obstacles arose at the beginning, just before the first winning numbers were about to be drawn.

“Because one ball fell out, I would put all the balls back in the machine,” Gates, who was in charge of the draw, told the live audience.

It’s not a quick process.

Each of the 171 applications is represented by a red and white, marble-sized, numbered ball. Each ball is initially placed in a metal tray with the numbers facing up. For each of the four drawings, the camera pans a tray of numbered balls to confirm to the live audience that the correct balls are in the tray, then pulls the balls out of the tray and drops them in one by one A look-through, metal mesh lottery spinning machine. As each ball entered the machine, Gates called out its number. The first reload process for 171 balls took about 6 minutes from start to finish.

Restrictions on winners — who must stay at least 1,000 feet away from another applicant — also mean that some of the balls of non-winners are eliminated after each draw.

The first lottery winner – 1038 S. Coast Highway – did not cancel any other applications, except for the same company’s application for the site next door. The second winner — the 1030 N. Coast Highway stop in Leucadia — eliminated several Leucadia Boulevard and Coast Highway stops. The third winner — the 583 S Coast Highway stop in the city center — knocked out three other Coast Highway stops, two on Second Street and one on F Street. Since many locations have multiple retail applications, there are multiple numbered balls in the lottery, and each elimination process may involve removing many balls.

In addition to not being allowed to sit near another cannabis business, the four retail stores must be at least 1,000 feet from “sensitive uses” such as schools, day care centers and playgrounds. City regulations say they can operate between 7am and 9pm and must be equipped with security cameras, sirens and 24-hour security.

For information on the lottery and business license process, visit the city’s website: https://encinitasca.gov/Government/Departments/Development-Services/Planning-Division/Policy-Planning/Cannabis-Ordinance-Measure-H

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