"Things are working out very well in these first 12 months ..." said Port Hueneme Police Chief Andrew Salinas. Juan Carlo, VC Star
The experiment to sell recreational marijuana in Ventura County has largely been successful if you ask law enforcement officials in both Port Hueneme and Ojai, where the first shops opened legally.
In 2018, California legalized the sale of recreational pot for the first time.
As of Wednesday, 639 medicinal and recreational retailers were licensed to sell cannabis products, according to the state’s Bureau of Cannabis Control. Of those, 38 are recreational, 83 are medicinal, 517 are both and one has no designation.
In Ventura County, the two cities – and seven dispensaries – where sales are permitted have served as test cases for how recreational marijuana could work in the region.
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“As far as it goes, it’s been relatively seamless,” said sheriff’s Capt. James Fryhoff, who serves as Ojai’s police chief.
For now, Ojai and Port Hueneme are the only cities in Ventura County to allow recreational marijuana sales.
Recreational and medical marijuana sales are still banned in Oxnard, Camarillo, Santa Paula, Fillmore and Moorpark. A single medical dispensary is due to open in Thousand Oaks in 2019.
The first marijuana stores in Ventura County launched in late January and early February 2018, allowing only medical marijuana sales for the first few months of the year before beginning recreational sales over the summer.
By the end of 2018, four recreational marijuana storefronts were up and running in Port Hueneme and three stores were open in Ojai.
All of Ojai’s marijuana businesses are within walking distance of each other, Fryhoff said, adding that he has not seen an uptick in calls for service in the area.
Port Hueneme Police Chief Andrew Salinas said the four retail shops in his city have not only been safe, but they have also outperformed anticipated sales.
“They are all doing extremely well,” Salinas said.
For 2018, the city was expected to collect nearly $1 million in tax revenue from marijuana sales, exceeding expectations, he said.
Salinas said only 10 percent of the customers purchasing marijuana products originate from Port Hueneme. Approximately 50 percent travel from Oxnard, 15 percent from Camarillo and 10 percent from Ventura, he said. The remaining 15 percent of customers come from various other cities.
Fryhoff did not know where Ojai customers come from but noted that the city is a tourist destination. He said he requested a traffic study to measure the effects of marijuana legalization.
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In Port Hueneme, the police chief said recreational marijuana sales have helped the city.
“In terms of traffic and crime, it’s actually cleaned up some areas,” Salinas said.
The presence of armed guards and additional security measures may be deterring some crime, Salinas said. In both cities, retail marijuana shops are required to have armed security on the premises during hours of operation.
Some businesses elect to have a guard nearby 24 hours a day.
In one instance, potential burglars broke a window to attempt to gain entry to a Port Hueneme retail store but were turned away from the business by security cameras, Salinas said.
In both Port Hueneme and Ojai, establishments are required to abide by security protocols established not only by the state, but also by local law enforcement.
In Port Hueneme, for example, security footage from all of the shops must be accessible to Salinas at all times.
In late December, while visiting Skunkmasters, a marijuana shop on North Ventura Road in Port Hueneme, Salinas opened an app on his phone and sorted through different video feeds from other stores in the city.
One feed showed a waiting room filled with customers. Another showed a sales floor.
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The access to security footage is department-wide, allowing even officers with smartphones the ability to see events unfolding in real time inside of a shop.
As a result of the interaction between law enforcement and the business operators, both Fryhoff and Salinas said they have cultivated positive relationships with retailers.
“I’m not pro-marijuana, but I’m not anti-business, either,” Fryhoff said. “We want to make sure (the businesses) are not being victimized.”
The communication, he said, helps maintain public safety.
Salinas echoed those sentiments, adding that he entered the legalization process with skepticism and preconceived notions.
“I spent two years as a narcotics officer in Oxnard,” he said. “I have been able to knock down some of these preconceived notions.
“It’s better to embrace it and learn about it,” he said.
Nevertheless, the arena of legal marijuana sales remains a new frontier with many unknowns still to be discovered. As a result, both Fryhoff and Salinas were cautious.
“I’m curious to know what the long-term issues will be,” Fryhoff said. “By next year, we hope to have a better understanding.”
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Fryhoff said that while there had been no measurable increase in crime due to the legal marijuana facilities, black-market facilities were still being targeted for robberies.
As of December, Ojai had no plans to add recreational marijuana storefronts.
Port Hueneme, though, was full steam ahead with the industry, with no specific cap yet established on the number of business, according to Salinas. In 2019, the city expects to see at least four additional stores and multiple cultivation and delivery sites, Salinas said.
“As police chief, I’d rather have six or seven highly regulated facilities,” he said. “I would prefer that there be some kind of cap or limit.”
Still, Salinas was enthusiastic about the future of legal marijuana in Port Hueneme. He said he wanted the city to be the model.
The operators of the businesses said they feel similarly.
“We’re not going to be negligent,” said Mark Tatum, manager and operator of Skunkmasters.
“To be on this side of it, to make it work, it’s a beautiful thing,” he said.
Mackenna Bardsley, general manager of From the Earth, which sits only feet away from Skunkmasters, said: “We wanted to make sure we got it right.”
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