Old Town Goleta is at the center of a high-stakes battle over marijuana dispensaries and the future look and feel of the city’s working-class business corridor.
The neighborhood — bracketing a mile-long stretch of Hollister Avenue between Highway 217 on the east and South Fairview Avenue to the west — has barely changed over the past 40 years. The area is home to an eclectic array of businesses, from restaurants and markets to auto shops and bakeries, but that appears about to change.
As of Jan. 11, the City of Goleta has received 14 applications for storefront retail marijuana dispensaries; nine are in Old Town, seven of them right on Hollister Avenue. All of the applications are on the ocean side of Highway 101, largely because of the lower commercial rent costs on the south side of the city.
The City Council held a workshop on Jan. 23 to talk about a variety of rules and regulations for the retail storefronts, including whether individual dispensaries should be separated by 300 feet to prevent hubs, and whether they should be at least 100 feet from residences.
The council is also struggling mightily with the Goleta Valley Community Center, at 5679 Hollister Ave., and whether it should be encircled by a 300-foot — or larger — buffer. The campus is home to the United Boys & Girls Clubs of Santa Barbara County’s Goleta clubhouse, the Rainbow School preschool and a variety of after-school youth programs.
“We don’t know what it is going to look like exactly,” Councilman Stuart Kasdin said. “Is it going to be that it is a CVS, a drugstore, … or is it more like a liquor store and we want to have more of a shelter from kids and so forth.
“The community center has an abundance of folks there. If there is any area where we need a buffer, that would be it.”
Councilman Roger Aceves questioned the parameters of a 300-foot buffer, given that the community center itself is set back from the street, and he noted the presence of an adjacent restaurant with “a full bar” as well as a nearby gun shop.
He also said any buffer should not extend to businesses across the street.
“Children aren’t going to go across the street,” Aceves said. “They get dropped off at the community center.”
Mayor Paula Perotte wants to increase the buffer to as much as 600 feet to reduce the number of dispensaries in Old Town.
“Why would we need that many in Old Town,” she asked. “It’s just so concentrated in not a very big area.”
Several business owners or their representatives spoke at the meeting, asserting that it was unfair for the city to now add separation requirements between businesses or “sensitive receptors” because they have already purchased or leased property in Old Town.
According to the California Air Resources Board, sensitive receptors are children, the elderly, people with lung conditions and others at a heightened risk of negative health outcomes from exposure to air pollution. Hospitals, schools and day-care centers are considered sensitive receptor locations.
Larry Conlan, a partner with Cappello & Noël representing Coastal Dispensary, said his client applied for a conditional use permit in 2018 and at that time there was no buffer requirement or talk of sensitive receptors.
He cited Coastal Dispensary’s “significant investment” in the application process, business plans, storefront location identification, architectural renderings and design plans before the issue of the Goleta Valley Community Center was raised.
“It seems to us that the rules and guidelines have now changed after these resources have been expended,” Conlan said. “That affects not only us as an applicant but also anyone else who has applied and participated in this process.”
He said the buffer requirements seem to be arbitrary and suggested they should be imposed on new applicants, not those that already are in the approval process.
Although citing concerns about “oversaturation,” Councilman Kyle Richards said he understood the dispensary owners’ complaints that “we are seemingly changing the rules midstream.”
“It certainly isn’t our intent to punish anybody for following the rules,” he said. “I hope … what we come up with is something that is for the greater good of the entire city and the entire community.
“We hear your pain and the sacrifices that you have made.”
— Noozhawk staff writer Joshua Molina can be reached at jmolina@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
