The city of Paso Robles' current cannabis regulations only allow cannabis delivery services to establish and operate in city limits.

Now, delivery companies are learning that "city limits" doesn't include downtown.

Paso officials recently denied Dubs Green Garden a license to operate its delivery out of a downtown commercial property, even though the company has used the location on Park Street as its office for years prior.

• File Photo By Jayson Mellom
• LIMITED REAL ESTATE Paso Robles is looking to keep cannabis delivery services out of its downtown, denying a recent application from Dubs Green Garden to set up shop on Park Street.

The rub, according to the city, is that new state cannabis laws require delivery services to store their cannabis products at a licensed brick-and-mortar facility. After reviewing Dubs' application to do just that, the city decided that downtown wasn't where it wanted cannabis deliveries to set up shop.

"Everybody looked at it and there was just a concern about what effect that may have on the downtown," Paso Community Development Director Warren Frace said.

Frace said the concerns involved public safety and cannabis' potentially negative economic impact on other downtown businesses and industries.

"The City Council's position was to go slowly and carefully and not to take a step that somehow jeopardizes what's going on downtown that's really positive right now," he said. "If they're mobile, it doesn't seem like it really matters [to the business] where they're at."

Dubs Green Garden initially filed an appeal of the city's denial—but withdrew it on May 22. Frace said the company found a different property for the business, north of the fairgrounds on Black Oak Drive. That location may end up housing three mobile dispensaries, he said.

Paso has roughly 30 licensed delivery services, with seven running their businesses within the city. Another delivery that already has an office downtown, Coastal Elevation, spoke against a ban on downtown cannabis businesses at a city Planning Commission meeting on May 22.

"I'm asking that you let us, the legitimate operators, find our location that we've been allowed to [operate] in the city of Paso, even if it means being in a downtown location where we've proven it's not been a problem," said Sandra Wood of Coastal Elevation.

Paso's cannabis licenses are currently temporary and valid for up to one year. The City Council plans to adopt a permanent cannabis ordinance within the next year, Frace said.