Can a weed dispensary and drug treatment center be good neighbors? We’re about to find out

The Sacramento City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to approve a new cannabis dispensary in South Sacramento over the objections of a particular neighbor — a drug treatment center.

Diamond House Detox CEO Vicky Magobet had argued that her clients would be tempted to buy marijuana at the dispensary. The dispensary would be located less than 200 feet from her center on Bruceville Road.

The proposed dispensary had slogged through a planning department process that began all the way back in January 2022. But a snafu in the process led to the recent discovery that the two businesses were so close to each other.

Dispensary owner La Krisha Young was required to notify sensitive use facilities, such as drug treatment centers, that are within 600 feet of her proposed location. The problem is, the drug treatment center opened several months after Young began her January 2022 notification process and neither Young, city officials nor Magobet were aware of each other until a city hearing in October 2022.

The Sacramento Planning and Design Commission approved Young’s conditional use permit in December 2022. City planning officials said they couldn’t offer an opinion on the compatibility of a drug treatment facility and a dispensary being so close, nothing that was beyond their expertise.

Magobet had appealed the decision to the city council, saying dug treatment centers and dispensaries aren’t a good match, so close to each other.

Tuesday night’s hearing lasted more than three hours and council members showed general support for Young,

Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg said Young had spent several hundred thousand dollars in start-up costs for her location and was part of the city’s CORE program to award dispensary licenses to victims of the war on drugs.

“We owe an obligation to our communities of color, African-American communities,” he said.

Young is Black and grew up in South Sacramento, where she said that friends and relatives were arrested for marijuana possession. She was not arrested herself.

Councilmember Mai Vang, whose district includes the location of the drug treatment center and the dispensary, said that CORE program recipients such as Young should receive preferential treatment by the city over non city-sponsored cannabis retailers.

“This situation just all around is really disappointing,” she said, “because I really see it as pitting two women businesses against each other.”

Vang said she is also concerned about failures in the notification progress that led to Young and Magobet only discovering about each other’s business in late 2022.

She said “this case really highlights the flaw in our planning system.”

Magobet made a surprise announcement at the hearing. She offered to take over the lease Young had signed for her planned dispensary, relieving her of financial obligations.

No one took her up on the offer.

Magobet said she was disappointed with the council decision.

“What I wanted was for the city council to think of the best interests of the community and my clients,” she said. “So they made their decision. And I will have to respect that.”

Young said she was just happy that the process had come to a close and that she could move forward

“It’s been a tough few months,” she said.

This story was originally published February 22, 2023 at 4:00 PM with the headline "Can a weed dispensary and drug treatment center be good neighbors? We’re about to find out."