City council takes no action on ordinance amendment, thereby preventing cannabis business from moving into town
It’s not very often that the Tracy City Council receives a round of applause at a regular meeting. But that’s exactly the sound that filled council chambers earlier this week, as over 25 community members attended Monday’s meeting.
When all was said and done, Tracy City Administrator Jeff Carpenter praised the council as well on their actions that night.
“I would like to thank you all for the last couple weeks,” Carpenter said. “I know it hasn’t been easy with all the phone calls, emails, and text messages and visits you all have received over the last couple weeks. I feel you made the right decision. Do I want to see businesses come to town? Absolutely. Do we need to work on that? Absolutely. But in my opinion, you made the right decision and you did it in a professional way.”
The action that brought the praise was, in fact, no action at all.
Following discussion about the current cannabis dispensary ordinance at the Jan. 12 meeting, Monday’s agenda included a discussion to rescind resolution 2024-98.
This resolution essentially turned over control of granting, enforcing and monitoring of dispensary licenses to Lyon County. Lyon County’s ordinance allows for two licenses in the county, one for every 12,500 residents.
The County has already granted those two licenses.
During the public comment period, several residents expressed the reasons they were not in favor of a dispensary.
Scott Shelton moved to Tracy just over a yearand-a-half ago. He expressed why moving to Tracy was so important to his life.
“I moved here because I’ve witnessed the murders in the Cities,” Shelton said. “I have 12 years and eight months of sobriety. There isn’t a day that doesn’t go by that I don’t have some form of “stinking thinking” that goes on. That means once you’re an addict, when you have something like marijuana, you know how hard that is to try and stay sober and really not try to back slide to that. I picked out this town because it was 2,000 and I thought it was going to be like Mayberry, where people were kind and nice and loving.
“I have found that,” he went on to say. “I don’t want to see it ruined by readily available pot. You don’t think that there is some idiot out there that is going to buy this stuff and sell it to underage kids that can’t go and buy it? Because that’s what’s going to happen. There are too many good kids in this town. You’re going to invite a bunch of deviants in this city. You’re drawing them right to our town and we don’t need that. I don’t want to see this town turn into a trash dump.”
Pastor Thor Bruntvedt with Tracy Bible Church shared similar concerns with the council.
“I have met many people who have come to Tracy to start over in life,” Bruntvedt said. “Tracy has been a great place for people to make a fresh start. Tracy is a great place because of the relatively low cost of living. There are many safe neighborhoods. There are also short distances, you can walk all over town. Currently, if someone was struggling with addiction, they would have to sacrifice their time and money to drive further away potentially and leave our community in order to pursue it. That is a benefit in overcoming an addition. Step one in rehab is creating inaccessibility. I want Tracy to be a place where people come to seek recovery, not a place where we seek to make a profit on destructive life choices. “
Pastor Thor also questioned if the addition of a dispensary would impact the safety for those riding the bikes in town with more impaired drivers as there are many streets without sidewalks.
He also questioned the location on the highway and within walking distance of almost all the low income housing.
“It is a barrier to lifting folks out of dire economic circumstance and I speak in opposition to bringing a dispensary to town, Bruntvedt said.”
Mary Grunden expressed the toll addiction takes on a family.
“My family has been affected by addition,” Grunden said. “It is not just one person, it’s the whole family. I understand the revenue that you are looking at bringing in, which we need desperately. But I also want to point out the cost of rehab. For 30 days, and 30 days doesn’t do it, the cost is $12,000-$15,000. I am opposed to this. I don’t want it in this town.”
During discussion of the agenda item, attorney Matthew Gross explained to the council that if they rescind the current resolution to then call for a public hearing, they are then removing control from the County and placing it in the City’s hands.
Currently, the state statute would require the City to issue one license for every 12,000 people. Therefore, by rescinding the resolution, they would be committing to authorizing one license in Tracy.
In addition, the statute doesn’t allow the City to create an ordinance that it would not allow a dispensary in town. With the current County ordinance, two licenses are allowed to be authorized by the County, which Lyon County has done. At this moment, it means that the County would not authorize another license to be used in Tracy.
However, Gross explained that if one of those current license holders lets their license go or has it revoked, the County would then be required to issue another license to the next person on the list no matter where it is in the County.
After clarification and discussion by the council, the agenda item died due to no motion being made. Therefore the City of Tracy ordinance stands as it was approved in 2024 and a license will need to be granted by Lyon County.
In other board news …
• The board approved resolution 2026-13 declaring property no longer needed for public use - dump truck.
• The board approved resolution 202615 - approving amendments to the Fleet Management Policy.
