LOS ANGELES (AP) — In what could be a temporary victory for California’s legal cannabis industry, a judge has dismissed a lawsuit that sought to overturn a state rule allowing home deliveries statewide, even into communities that banned commercial marijuana sales.
The court challenge raised a fundamental question in the nation’s largest legal pot market: Where can you buy it? The state earlier ruled a licensed delivery can be made into “any jurisdiction” within California.
But a group of local governments behind the court challenge argued that the state was usurping their authority to regulate marijuana sales within their borders.
While the cities argued that the state rule “removes local regulatory power,” Fresno County Superior Court Judge Rosemary McGuire agreed with the state that the regulation and local ordinances “do not occupy the same field and are not in conflict.”
Without a conflict, “this matter is not ripe for adjudication,” she concluded in a Tuesday order.
McGuire agreed with the state that the regulation applies to state cannabis license holders, not local governments that filed the lawsuit.
The state regulation “does not command local jurisdictions to do anything or preclude them from doing anything,” she added. “It does not command local jurisdictions … to permit delivery. Nor does it override their local ordinances…