Santa Cruz dispensary decision pits city’s past against anxieties about its future

If one were to scan the past 50 years for the essential Santa Cruz moment that frames the city’s ethos as a vanguard of liberal politics, many would point to Sept. 17, 2002. 

Beneath the ominous chop of a federal Drug Enforcement Agency helicopter, the Santa Cruz City Council stood behind members of the local Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana as they handed out medical pot to patients suffering from a range of maladies. The move, a little bit of hippie mixed with a sort of punk rock progressivism, drew the attention of the nation. Major news outlets descended onto Center Street, with the likes of CNN broadcasting live in front of city hall and reporters from The New York Times and Los Angeles Times reporting from the ground. 

Two weeks earlier, the DEA had raided WAMM’s medical pot farm on the North Coast, seizing 167 cannabis plants and arresting WAMM founders Valerie and Mike Corral, despite Californians voting to legalize medicinal cannabis in 1996. The inquisition by federal agents on a local operation, particularly one committed to treating the sick and dying, prompted an outcry. Then-vice mayor Emily Reilly, a longtime friend of the Corrals, suggested the city council respond with a bombastic move of its own: defy the federal government and support WAMM by staging the pot handout at city hall and daring the DEA to intervene. Once federal officers caught wind of the plan, they immediately criticized the city council as poor role models.

“I wonder what kind of message they want to send to our youth,” DEA Special Agent Richard Meyer said then. “Are they trying to tell youths and the rest of the U.S. that in Santa Cruz, you only have to obey the laws you like?”

Now, nearly 22 years later, WAMM, Valerie Corral, Reilly, the Santa Cruz City Council and the interests of the youth are all once again central figures in a fight converging on city hall. 

On Tuesday, the Santa Cruz City Council will decide whether a new cannabis dispensary can move into 1129 Mission St., where for 41 years Reilly operated Emily’s Bakery before closing it last summer. The dispensary, a partnership between WAMM and cannabis retailer The Hook Outlet, had met all land-use and code requirements to move into the Westside address, received the green light from the city’s planning commission in March and appeared unstoppable until it collided with an immovable object: the vocal and organized opposition of parents and the Santa Cruz City Schools District. 

Despite the dispensary sitting more than 800 feet from Santa Cruz High School and about 1,300 feet from Mission Hill Middle School — comfortably beyond the codified 600-foot school buffer — opponents have that argued its proximity would increase cannabis access for students. Amid rising drug use and mental health issues, now was not the time for a dispensary in the neighborhood, they argued. The school district passed a resolution opposing the dispensary, then parents appealed the planning commission’s approval, leaving the final decision to the city council this Tuesday. 

Despite the proposal meeting its code requirements, the city council does maintain some wiggle room to deny the dispensary if councilmembers believe it would create more harm than good.

Corral and Hook Outlet operator Bryce Berryessa say they have already poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into the location after early assurances from city staff that the project was well placed. Yet, they say more than money is at stake on Tuesday. If, after all of Berryessa and Corral’s investment, city council politics block the dispensary, it could mean the end of WAMM – a possible outcome that has pulled political heavy hitters, such as state Sen. John Laird and Assemblymember Gail Pellerin, as well as former mayors and councilmembers, into the fight.

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At 3 p.m. on a recent sun-drenched Wednesday, as a small Santa Cruz City Schools bus rolled past the dispensary on Laurel Street, Corral exited her old Subaru Outback as Berryessa turned off his black Tesla, and the two stepped into what has lately felt more like purgatory than a dispensary. 

Inside, new wooden wall frames offered signs of a location under transformation, with some new bones to show for it. Yet, as Berryessa stepped around mechanical mixers, baking tray carts and grimy industrial ovens, it was clear the building still had some skin to shed. Momentum on the renovations had slowed, and although a contractor tinkered in the background, a giant question mark now sucked up much of the air in the building. 

“We got so much positive feedback from the city that we thought everything was going to be fine and we were going to open in January [2024],” Berryessa said.

Berryessa and Corral retrieved the keys to Emily’s in July after buying Reilly out of her lease. Reilly, after more than four decades, had been reconsidering her future and the bakery. The pandemic had taken its toll on the business and business owner. Reilly said Berryessa approached her around this time, telling her the Westside was where he wanted to be.

“Then I found out the reason was because he wanted to help out Val [Corral] and WAMM and that just blew my mind,” Reilly said. “We knew we were coming to the end of the bakery. For me to imagine Val having an office in that building, it was just spectacular.”

Through WAMM, Corral has built more than three decades’ worth of goodwill in the community. After having first-hand experience with the medical benefits of cannabis following a car crash, Corral started WAMM as a means to serve sick and terminally ill patients with medicinal cannabis products at low or, most often, no cost. She played a critical role in treating people during the HIV/AIDS crisis, and was a leading figure in the legalization of medical cannabis in California. Today, WAMM’s membership hovers around 200.

Yet, the 2016 legalization of recreational cannabis in California and the influx of regulations, taxes and increased competition struck a critical blow to Corral. WAMM has always subsisted on donations, but donations have slowed to a trickle and in recent years have been unable to cover the cost of service. One of Corral’s last, valuable assets is her retail dispensary – one of only five permitted in the city of Santa Cruz. Yet, she never had the capital nor the profit motive to open her own space. Hurtling toward dire straits, Corral realized WAMM’s future depended on finding a retail partner who could help not only subsidize WAMM but take over the business and operations side as well. 

“I searched for years for a business partner but was ready to close WAMM before getting into bed with someone who was not going to carry on the mission or just use the name and the license to profit,” Corral said one afternoon on the back patio of the old bakery. “This is not just a passing of the torch, it’s a relighting of the torch, it’s expanding the torch, it’s making the torch even brighter.” 

Berryessa’s Treehouse dispensary in Soquel already provides a pickup location for WAMM members, and has implemented a round-up-the-change program that provides a direct donation to Corral. The Mission Street location would provide office space for Corral and WAMM on the Westside, where most of the organization’s members live. Berryessa said his team would take over soliciting donations, finding partnerships with cannabis growers and running the business side of WAMM so Corral could be out in the community, expanding membership and working directly with patients.

After paying out of her own pocket to keep WAMM running over the past decade, Corral said she is out of money. If the city approves the permit, she will be able to formally sell the retail license to Berryessa. A denial would strike a critical blow, she said, that could crumble WAMM’s future. 

“I cannot continue to live in Santa Cruz without an income,” Corral said. “I’ve already given so much away. If this doesn’t go through, I don’t have another year’s worth of resources to stay here and keep WAMM operating. Will I still help people? I will do my best, but I cannot afford to live on nothing. It’s not fair for the community, the city council, to say, figure out how to do this another way. They should have said that a year ago and we would have been able to look for somewhere else. But they didn’t.” 

“No, what the city said,” Berryessa said, “was that this was a home run.” 

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The outpouring of support for WAMM and Hook Outlet’s Mission Street location has been double-edged. People have argued it is a matter of fairness: The dispensary meets all of the code and land-use requirements for approval, and Hook Outlet and WAMM have already invested hundreds of thousands of dollars based on the city’s early assessments. But an emotional side also creeps in that draws supporters. How could the city council strike down an organization like WAMM when the application conforms to all of the city’s rules? 

In a letter to the city council, Pellerin said WAMM had served the community with critical and compassionate care for decades. The partnership and proposal with Hook Outlet met “all the city zoning and safety requirements,” and had earned its right to operate at the Mission Street location. 

“I urge the council to approve this dispensary,” Pellerin wrote, “which will ensure that those most in need receive the care and support they deserve while upholding public safety and responsible business practices”

Laird praised WAMM for stepping up during the HIV/AIDS crisis and seemed to place the fate of the organization in the hands of the city council. He said WAMM and Hook Outlet would “go broke” if the dispensary gets blocked. An approval by the city council, he said, would amount to “a simple act of kindness.”

“I am loath to express an opinion on any local planning matter, particularly since I deal with my share of controversies at the state level,” Laird wrote. “But I have always had a special place in my heart for those who stood up in a challenging time, when many did not. I could not live with myself if I remained silent about [WAMM’s] history and the fairness in this matter.”

On Tuesday, the city council will have to weigh this against the loud and organized objection of parents and the Santa Cruz City Schools district. On Feb. 28, just ahead of the planning commission’s approval of the dispensary proposal, the school district’s trustees passed a resolution rejecting the proposal. 

“SCCS student discipline data demonstrate that the number of students being identified for possession or being under the influence of substances more than doubled this last year,” the resolution read. “Research establishes that permitting marijuana dispensaries in close proximity to schools results in increased youth access and sends youth the wrong message that marijuana is a safer drug.” 

The group of parents leading the appeal, have organized a letter-writing campaign and a petition with more than 900 signatures opposing the dispensary. The parents and school district emphasize that their opposition is not against the legalization of cannabis, or against Hook Outlet and WAMM, but just about the proximity to the school. 

“I’m happy that we have dispensaries and that there is regulation and care going into what is being sold,” said Sage Smiley, a parent of a Santa Cruz High School student and signee onto the city council appeal. “I wouldn’t have a problem with this going somewhere else. I actually feel for Mr. Berryessa. I think it’s really unfortunate that he went so far down this road before seeming to recognize that people were not going to be happy about this. But I don’t feel like that’s something I can correct for him.” 

Many parents, as well as the school district, are also not convinced that the city council’s denial would strike an existential blow to WAMM.   

“WAMM has been around for more than 20 years and they still don’t have their act together, I mean, this is pretty telling, I’m sorry,” Santa Cruz High School parent Yesenia Cardona-Muller told Lookout. “What is it that is making them not have money? I can’t believe that one location is going to be the end-all-be-all.”

Sam Rolens, spokesperson for Santa Cruz City Schools, said he thought WAMM already sold its dispensary license to Hook Outlet, and that, even without the Mission Street location, WAMM patients could still pick up medical cannabis at the Soquel Treehouse location and the Hook Outlet in Watsonville. Berryessa and Corral said the license will not sell unless the city approves the permit; Berryessa also said WAMM patients had access only to the Soquel shop.   

Berryessa and Corral said they have tried to make compromises with the parents and the school district. Berryessa scrapped plans for a transparent glass facade so that now no one from the street will be able to see inside the dispensary. He also agreed to remove any dispensary-related branding from the building and advertise the Hook Outlet’s name on only a single sign in the parking lot. Although customers of the recreational retail business must be 21 or older, medical cannabis is accessible to those 18 and older with a prescription. However, Berryessa agreed to not allow 18- and 19-year-olds to use the Mission Street Hook Outlet to pick up medical cannabis. None of these compromises, he said, has moved the resistance. 

Smiley acknowledged that Californians voted to legalize cannabis and make it accessible in the way that alcohol has become normalized. Yes, children pass liquor, wine and beer in the grocery store, but it still doesn’t make her feel any better about a dispensary opening up near a school. 

“I can’t solve all that though, this [dispensary] is a new thing, and it wants to come in, and I feel like I don’t necessarily have to make everything make sense to say that this doesn’t make sense,” Smiley said. 

Berryessa – also a parent who plans to eventually send his children to Mission Hill Middle School and Santa Cruz High School – and Corral said they understand the concerns from parents, who they believe are trying in earnest to look out for their children. However, Berryessa said he’d prefer to tackle that through education instead of repression, especially in the age of the internet and smartphones which daily have the potential to expose children to the darker depths of this world. 

“My heart goes out to parents raising children today; how can I feel anything but compassion for them?” Corral said. “They see there is a problem, but in trying to solve that problem, they are reaching out to strike cannabis. It’s not the answer.” 

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