CA: Marijuana Extraction Plant Eyeing Shasta Lake

Katelyn Baker

Well-Known Member
A nonprofit corporation that manufactures honey oil and cannabis products wants to open a facility in the Shasta Gateway Industrial Park in Shasta Lake.

NorCal Nectar would use noncombustible CO2, rather than highly flammable solvents such as butane or propane, to extract the oil from the weed.

The nonprofit, whose website boasts "some say our nectar is sweeter than honey," wants to open on Iron Court in the former Unity Electric building.

To do so, NorCal Nectar needs a zoning amendment that the Shasta Lake Planning Commission will consider Thursday at 6 p.m..

The zoning revisions would allow CO2 extraction processing and manufacturing in the industrial park and put in conditions to ensure it's safe for employees, vendors and neighbors.

The Planning Commission is expected to make a recommendation and then forward it to the City Council, which will have the final say. If approved, the zoning amendment would apply to all zoned properties in the Shasta Gateway Industrial Park.

NorCal Nectar could be the first of many cannabis production proposals for Shasta Lake as the city looks at ways to leverage the newly approved Proposition 64, which legalizes recreational marijuana use for adults and sets up a regulatory framework for the pot industry.

"I am not aware of any other extraction firms but I do know of at least two others interested in commercial cultivation, and that would be indoors," Shasta Lake City Manager John Duckett said.

Shasta Lake is the only municipality in Shasta County that allows medical cannabis dispensaries and has expressed an interest in the recreational marijuana industry.

The city levies a 6 percent gross receipts tax on its three dispensaries and collected $417,000 in fiscal 2016, which ended in June. Duckett said Shasta Lake is on pace to exceed that total in fiscal 2017.

Shasta Lake will pay a Fairfield consultant $25,000 to help it come up with a licensing process and explore the commercial side of the marijuana business, including how to tax it, Duckett said.

SCI Consulting will be introduced Tuesday at a marijuana ad hoc committee meeting at City Hall that starts at 6 p.m., Duckett said.

"If we allow commercial cultivation within the city, we would want to have proper licensing, and so we would look at that and how it would play out," Duckett said.

Sonia Brusch of NorCal Nectar came to the city several months ago to ask about a commercially zoned property on Shasta Dam Boulevard. But after talking with city planners, it was determined that the Shasta Gateway Industrial Park would be a better fit, according to a staff report.

Brusch has worked with other facilities in Colorado that use CO2 to extract cannabis oil, the staff report said.

Brusch could not be reached for comment.

NorCal Nectar has told city officials that eventually it wants use the concentrated cannabis to make edibles but it would need a commercial kitchen to do so, the staff report said.

The Shasta County Health Department has indicated that a hazardous waste business plan would need to be approved before NorCal Nectar could open in the industrial park.

According to the staff report, Brusch has asked the city to waive the 6 percent sales tax Shasta Lake puts on medical marijuana sales, but that will not be addressed by the zoning amendment. Duckett and City Attorney John Kenny are currently reviewing how NorCal Nectar's operation would be taxed.

In December, the City Council approved a 45-day hold on new cannabis operations, giving officials time to study Proposition 64 and the Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act, or MMRSA.

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News Moderator: Katelyn Baker 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: Marijuana Extraction Plant Eyeing Shasta Lake
Author: David Benda
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Photo Credit: Joe Szydlowski
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