San Luis Obispo County judge rules BCC “exceeded their authority in promulgating the advertisement placement regulation.”

In other words it could be bye bye for roadside advertising for cannabis in California. We imagine some of the big cannabis delivery players will be challenging this one.

Karen Velie reports for CalCoastal News that A San Luis Obispo County judge ruled Friday that cannabis billboards on California’s interstate highways and some state highways are prohibited by Proposition 64, a voter initiative approved in 2016.

Karen Velie

Velie writes

California’s Business and Professions Code bars marijuana businesses from advertising on “state or interstate highways which cross the California border.” But the California Bureau of Cannabis Control interpreted the law to mean that billboards could be used to advertise marijuana businesses on interstate highways as long as they were not within 15 miles of the border.

“The bureau determined that a 15-mile radius was a necessary and appropriate distance from the California border because it satisfies the intent of section 26152(d) of the Business and Professions Code, while assuring that bureau licensees have an opportunity to advertise and market along Interstate and State Highways if they satisfy the identified radius limitations,” state regulators said in defense of their decision.

That 2019 interpretation led to cannabis billboards sprouting up along highways from San Diego to Crescent City.

Concerned with the impact cannabis advertising could have on children, Matthew Farmer filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s interpretation. His attorneys’ Saro Rizzo and Stewart Jenkins battled the bureau and its interpretation of Proposition 64.

SLO County Court Judge Ginger Garrett found that the bureau and Director Lori Ajax “exceeded their authority in promulgating the advertisement placement regulation.”