The Salinas City Council voted 7-0 on Tuesday, Aug. 4 to uphold the Planning Commission’s denial of a request to relocate a cannabis dispensary to 2033 North Main St., siding with residents who argued the site was too close to sensitive neighborhood uses.
“This decision is bigger than just a single business, it’s about whether the city will enforce the laws it adopted to protect our neighborhoods and preserve the integrity of the planning process,” Felipe Lopez told council members during the public comment period.
Jasmin Topete, who lives in District 5, shared a similar sentiment.
“This location is within the 1,000-foot buffer from Santa Rita Elementary School,” Topete said. “These aren't just buildings on a map. They’re places where kids live, walk, wait for the bus and play. This isn't about whether cannabis should be legal, but if this is the right place for a dispensary and I don't believe it belongs in the middle of a neighborhood built around families.”
The applicant, Emerald Skyway LLC (now Valley Farms), sought to amend its commercial cannabis permit to move from 1610 Moffett St. near the airport to 2033 North Main St. in a commercial retail district.
The business originally operated in an industrial district under a zoning framework where retail was allowed only as an accessory use to primary activities such as cultivation, manufacturing and delivery.
That arrangement unraveled in March 2022, Salinas Community Development Director Lisa Brinton explained, when the property owner canceled building permits for the cultivation and manufacturing components, triggering a zoning compliance problem and forcing the operator to seek a new location for the dispensary. (Valley Farms, which also has a dispensary in Del Rey Oaks, reported that it acquired Emerald Skyway for more than $3 million with the expectation it could keep operating in the original airport location.)
Valley Farms has been seeking relocation options and applied in November 2025 to move their dispensary to a 2,733 square-foot space in Northridge Plaza Shopping Center.
City staff measured the distance to neighboring parcels, and determined the location did not meet the minimum separation criteria for the distance to uses like a school, residential neighborhood and alcohol vendors, leading to denials first by a selection committee appointed by the city manager, then the Planning Commission and then on Aug. 4, by City Council.
Salinas City Councilmember Gloria De La Rosa voiced unease about how the process unfolded, including whether the city’s communication gave the small business reason to believe it could safely invest in a new site.
“It's not against the business. It's the location,” De La Rosa said.