Nevada County, Calif., Opens Application Window for Two New Cannabis Dispensaries

Supervisors voted 4-1 to circulate a formal request for applicants after a review process that began in 2023, targeting Soda Springs and North San Juan.

FILE — statehouse · B.D. Gilfry / CC BY-SA 2.0

Nevada County's Board of Supervisors voted 4 to 1 this week to begin accepting applications for up to two new cannabis retail storefronts in unincorporated parts of the county, according to TheUnion.com. The vote does not approve any specific dispensary or site, the outlet reported, but authorizes county staff to circulate a formal request for applicants (RFA) and an accompanying evaluation scorecard.

The Vote and the Process

District 2 Supervisor Robb Tucker cast the lone dissenting vote, according to TheUnion.com, citing opposition from residents in his district. "Residents in Tucker's District 2 'were pretty vocal that they weren't interested' in having dispensaries," the outlet reported, quoting Tucker as saying he was not "inclined to support this."

The RFA runs 18 pages and will circulate for a minimum of 30 days, TheUnion.com reported. The two eligible sites are expected to be limited to the Soda Springs and North San Juan areas. Applications will be scored by a committee drawn from each of the county's five supervisorial districts — one representative each from districts 1, 2 and 3, and two each from districts 4 and 5, according to the report.

Cannabis and Code Compliance Director Matt Kelley presented a summary of public outreach ahead of the vote, per TheUnion.com. Issues raised by residents reportedly included limited public notice, traffic, fire and public safety, environmental review, effects on schools and youth, neighborhood compatibility, and cross-jurisdictional concerns given the proximity of Placer and Yuba counties.

A Multi-Year, District-by-District Debate

The approval caps a review process that TheUnion.com said began in January 2023. Municipal Advisory Councils representing Penn Valley and the South County area, including Lake of the Pines, had rejected any dispensary proposal in their communities, according to the report. A July public meeting on a possible Soda Springs dispensary drew attendees who "expressed their discontent" and questioned the business's viability, TheUnion.com reported.

District 5 Supervisor Hardy Bullock told the board "there was a lot of non-factual information circulated about this topic," adding, "We're just here to correct the record… I do not want to do things that make my community upset," according to the outlet. Bullock said he had been skeptical of cannabis retail as a sustainable economic fit for the county but changed his view after touring operations with the Nevada County Cannabis Alliance: "I have seen firsthand that my perception and my feelings about cannabis were inaccurate."

District 4 Supervisor Sue Hoek, describing conversations with rural communities, said North San Juan residents were "a little bit concerned because we have a lot of moms and pops up there," but that the county was "looking at the economic development for that community," per TheUnion.com. Hoek said she had once opposed cannabis retail herself but came to support the process, noting that existing dispensaries in Nevada City and Grass Valley were "working quite well." Tucker, in his dissent, argued that "the biggest challenge for legal cannabis is illegal cannabis" and said lingering stigma from past decades still shapes public opinion in some districts, adding that "nothing changed from all that input."

Context and Caveats

The county already has operating storefronts, including Grass Valley Provisions and Elevation 2477 in Nevada City, which TheUnion.com referenced in describing the local retail landscape. It is worth noting that Nevada County, California, is a separate jurisdiction from the state of Nevada; licensing statistics in our database — showing 107 open retail licenses, 101 cultivation licenses, 81 manufacturing licenses and 8 labs — pertain to the state of Nevada's adult-use market and do not describe California's Nevada County, so they cannot be used to gauge the scale or demand for the two proposed storefronts.

What remains unresolved, based on TheUnion.com's reporting, is whether any applicant will ultimately clear the scorecard review and secure local buy-in in either Soda Springs or North San Juan, given the opposition registered by adjacent advisory councils and at least one supervisor. The 30-day circulation window suggests a near-term deadline for prospective operators, though the county has not set a date for selecting an applicant, according to the available reporting.