The Chesapeake City Council convened at 6:30 PM on September 8, 2026, following a 5:15 PM work session on cannabis sales regulation. The regular meeting included a public hearing, approval of multiple property acquisitions and grants, and extensive citizen comments on voting precinct changes, public safety, and development issues. All votes were 9-0 unless otherwise noted.
City Manager and Planning Director Jimmy McNamara presented the state's new adult-use cannabis retail market framework, established by HB30 as part of the biennial budget passed June 29, 2026. The law mandates eight license types (cultivation, processing, testing, transport, delivery, retail, dual-license, and microbusiness) and prohibits localities from banning cannabis businesses. Localities may regulate through conditional use permits, zoning buffers, hours of operation, and design/odor requirements. The state will begin accepting license applications February 1, 2027, with retail sales starting July 1, 2027. Councilmembers discussed local control limitations, tax implications (local sales tax up to 3.5% remitted quarterly), police training for DUI enforcement, advertising restrictions (500-foot buffer from schools), and potential impacts on children and public parks. Staff was directed to prepare ordinance amendments for adoption by January 1, 2027, and to research neighboring cities' approaches. Councilmembers expressed concerns about the state forcing localities to allow cannabis sales.
The consent agenda included acknowledgments of three zoning requests (Reserve at Wexford, Tidewater Express Inc., Royal Farms), four resignations, and six city manager items: acceptance of grants ($12,561 from Library of Virginia, $40,000 from Beazley Foundation, $19,861 from VA Dept. of Criminal Justice Services, $395 from U.S. Dept. of Justice, and $500,000 for Firearm Violence Intervention with four part-time positions), and donation of four sets of hydraulic rescue tools to Courtland Volunteer Fire Department. Item 5 (Firearm Violence Intervention grant) was removed from the consent agenda at Councilmember Newins' request and subsequently approved as an emergency item (9-0). The remainder of the consent agenda was approved 9-0. Councilmembers Newins and Jefferies disclosed personal interests as city employees.
Three speakers addressed agenda items:
Eleven citizens addressed non-agenda topics:
Council approved a concurrent (double) advertising request for the Tidewater Express Inc. rezoning (PLN-REZ-2025-023) to meet its development timeline, with a vote of 8-1 (Councilmember Ritter opposed). The request was made on the first meeting of the month as required.
Turn it over to Mr. Manager for the introduced to topics. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Every year is part of the um legislative process and the budget process, the General Assembly makes a variety of changes, and so we'll spend, you know, summer, fall, winter, uh, digesting those changes and then bringing forward um actions for council. Sometimes the actions are mandatory, uh we have to do, sometimes they're discretionary. Um, sometimes they're giving us the authority to do certain things. Um, this is one that's been kicking around for a few years. It's uh regarding cannabis legislation. We've had some work sessions and um a retreat uh on this with council in the past few years as we've learned information about what was tracking, but we finally have um some concrete legislation that's that's moved forward, and so now it's up to localities to um respond and and adopt uh their their effectuating ordinances. And so I'll turn it over to planning director uh Jimmy McDemara to go through a presentation about um where we're at today and and where we're likely going in the future. Jimmy asked a question before we start. Um would I just had a chance to kind of glance at these one, you know. Um, would you let us know if these are mandatory, if they're mandated by the General Assembly, or whether or not the um city has discretion. Yes, ma'am. So good evening, everyone, and thank you for your attention this evening. So we're gonna be talking about the biannual biannual budget and uh the nearly two hundred pages of cannabis uh regulation that was passed as part of this budget. The budget itself was passed in late June, June 29th by the General Assembly. Its passing did incorporate the full legal and regulatory framework for commercial adult use retail cannabis market, which will be regulated by the cannabis control authority or the CCA. So the CCA is responsible for licensing and regulating the market. As we are all aware, there have been multiple pieces of legislation that have been considered over the past couple years. Some were passed within a reenactment clause, which were not reenacted, and some were discussed and not passed. But when it comes to when it can come to establishing regulations here in Virginia, with the passing of HB30, we now have a bit more clarity on what regulations are being proposed and what authority looks like from a locality perspective and what we have with regards to this market. The new law requires marijuana business licenses for different aspects of the market. In total, there are eight different types of licenses which will be granted as part of the CCA's regulatory duties. I'd like to give uh dive into each one of these licenses and give the specifics of each. And uh just to you know get to the punchline here, these all these licenses are going to be required. We cannot regulate out these licenses as part of the legislation. So we'll we'll talk about what each of these is and what uh is available for the city from a regulatory standpoint. The first license is for a cultivation uh facility, and this includes cultivation, labeling, packaging, uh purchase, sale, transfer, and transportation of marijuana, marijuana plants, and marijuana seeds between licenses. Uh this includes both outdoor cultivation and indoor cultivation facilities like greenhouses. This license breaks facilities down between tier one and tier five facilities. Tier ones have up to 5,000 square feet of indoor or outdoor area, where tier 5 facilities are up to 35,000 of indoor only. Only tiers one and two include outdoor cultivation. Only five Tier V facilities can be issued prior to 2028, and there are no caps on the number of Tier 1 to Tier 4 facilities that will be uh licensed. I am sorry, could you repeat that last statement you just made out how many there are? Yeah, only five Tier V facilities can be issued prior to 2028. After that, there will be no cap on the Tier V facilities. However, even prior to 2028, there is no caps on the number of Tier 1 to Tier 4 facilities that will be permitted across the state. The next type of license that we'll be talking about is a processing facility, and this is a facility that is authorized to take raw cannabis from cultivation sites and convert it into finished, packaged, and tested products for ready for retail. So under HB 30, a processing facilities may handle all post-harvest activities, including extraction, infusion, manufacturing of edibles and concentrates, packaging, labeling, and preparing products for distribution. This license allows the business to purchase cannabis from cultivators, transfer products to transporters, sell processed cannabis to retailers, and move product to other processing facilities when necessary. It's also also worth noting that the processing licenses are not capped under the statute, meaning that the CCA can issue as many as are needed to meet market demand for this type of facility. Next, we have testing facilities. These are independent labs responsible for verifying product safety. They analyze cannabis for potency, contaminants, residual solvents, and product formulation accuracy. So Virginia prohibits common ownership between testing facilities and cultivation or processing operations to ensure integrity and consumer trust. These labs will also support enforcement efforts by ensuring that all products sold in Virginia comply with the State's THC limits, packaging rules, and the CCA health standards. The next type of facility is a transporter license. And this is to move cannabis between licensed businesses.