The ordinance lets licensed retailers serve meals and drinks alongside on-site hashish use.
The Board of Supervisors handed the ordinance regardless of some public well being teams and longtime operators urging them to decelerate. (Alto/Katarina Sundelin/Getty Photographs)
San Francisco will turn into the primary Bay Space metropolis to permit Amsterdam-style hashish cafés, after the Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to let licensed hashish retailers serve meals and nonalcoholic drinks alongside on-site consumption.
The measure implements AB 1775, a 2024 state regulation that enables cities to concern licenses to hashish cafés. Supporters framed it as a lifeline for a authorized business squeezed by excessive taxes, falling costs and a cussed illicit market that, by the state’s estimate, nonetheless accounts for roughly 60% of hashish bought in California.
Below the ordinance, cafés might promote hashish just for consumption on the premises — nothing might depart the constructing — and no alcohol or tobacco is allowed. Operators should carry a Division of Public Well being consumption allow alongside their Workplace of Hashish allow, meet the identical meals security requirements as any restaurant, and confirm each buyer’s age electronically on the door.
The ordinance, authored by Board President Rafael Mandelman, was permitted in a 7-4 vote, with Supervisors Connie Chan, Chyanne Chen, Jackie Wong and Myrna Melgar opposing it.
“San Francisco simply gave our authorized hashish business an actual software to compete and develop,” Mandelman stated in an announcement, situating the cafés alongside leisure zones and free concert events as a part of the town’s financial restoration. “There’s no cause our operators shouldn’t have the identical instruments to compete and assist deliver folks again into our neighborhoods.”
The laws establishes the hashish café inside its personal allow class, separate from an ordinary hashish retailer — the code is amended explicitly so {that a} “hashish retailer” not features a café.
This distinction ensures {that a} café is not going to promote something to go, and, as a brand-new license, ultimately creates a brand new entrance into the market reasonably than merely increasing what present retailers can do. For the primary yr, solely current storefront retailers and their fairness companions can apply. After that, new operators might apply.
The town has issued 79 hashish retailer permits, 66 of which had been lively as of earlier this yr.
Will Dolan, CEO of the Sundown District’s HYRBA Dispensary, stated the change lets the business “create a full-service hashish hospitality expertise” and “present our prospects with protected, extremely regulated areas.”
David Goldman, president of the Brownie Mary membership’s San Francisco chapter, wrote that he supported permitting present retailers so as to add meals and leisure, however opposed creating a completely new license sort in an oversaturated market. He famous in his letter that 23 hashish retail storefronts and 21 supply companies have already closed for the reason that metropolis allowed these permits.
He requested the board to attend for the town to launch an financial impression report on the business, due by mid-2027, earlier than letting new operators in. The one-year head begin was the ordinance’s reply to these issues.
The measure is now headed to Mayor Daniel Lurie’s desk for his signature.
If Lurie indicators it, the ordinance takes impact 31 days later, at which level the Workplace of Hashish will start accepting café functions.
