Long Beach dispensaries: 8 licensed shops by area (2026)

Every shop needs two licenses: one from the state Department of Cannabis Control and a Long Beach cannabis business license from the Business License Division of the Department of Financial Management, a pairing the city calls a dual-licensing system. Medical businesses operate under Chapter 5.90 of the Municipal Code, which voters enacted as Measure MM on 8 Nov 2016, and adult-use businesses under Chapter 5.92, which the City Council added by ordinance on 10 Jul 2018. A store that serves both markets needs a city license under each chapter.

The number of storefronts is capped. Measure MM provided for about 32 retail medical businesses, the city reports that all 32 adult-use dispensary licenses have been issued and that it is not accepting new applications, and an ordinance adopted on 24 May 2022 allowed eight more dispensary licenses for verified equity applicants, which would bring the total to 40. A dispensary may not open within 600 feet of a school, day care center, playground, community center or library, or in a building that contains a home, except on the ground floor of a mixed-use building in the Downtown Planned Development District.

Inside a store, nobody may consume cannabis, and a sign near the entrance must warn that smoking, vaporizing, ingesting or consuming cannabis, tobacco or alcohol on the premises or nearby breaks city law (LBMC 5.92.810); alcohol and tobacco may not be sold or used there either (LBMC 5.92.820). Licensed shops show the city's Licensed Cannabis Store Emblem in the window, and its QR code confirms the city license. The city's interactive cannabis map plots each licensed business and the buffer zones around schools and other sensitive uses.

Delivery has two routes. A licensed storefront may deliver to customers in Long Beach, finishing by 10 pm (LBMC 5.92.915), and the city also issues delivery-only licenses, uncapped but open only to verified equity applicants, whose drivers may deliver from 9 am to 10 pm up to seven days a week under Division XII of Chapter 5.92. The city's consumer page says delivery to a private residence may come only from a business with a valid California license, never from out of state.

Long Beach's cannabis business tax falls on the business, as a share of gross receipts: 8 percent for adult-use retail, in a store or by delivery, and 6 percent for medical retail. Measure MA, passed on 8 Nov 2016 with 68.25 percent of the vote and codified as LBMC 3.80.261, allows ranges of 6 to 8 percent for medical dispensaries and 8 to 12 percent for adult-use ones. On 15 Sep 2026 the City Council adopted an ordinance, in both emergency and regular form, that raised the adult-use rate from 7 to 8 percent and wound down the pilot tax credit program, which took its last applications on 8 Sep 2026.

How that tax reaches a shopper depends on the store. The city lets a retailer pass the tax on and itemize it on the receipt, or pay it without passing it on, and the tax is figured on everything the store sells, accessories and merchandise included. Flight on Cherry's tax page lists a 23 percent cannabis tax at the register for adult-use buyers, while Catalyst says tax is already included in its menu prices; the sales tax itself is 11 percent in Long Beach from 1 Oct 2026, by CDTFA's rate table. Buyers also pay California's cannabis excise tax, 15 percent of gross receipts since AB 564 lowered it from 19 percent on 1 Oct 2025.

Long Beach voters approved a cannabis tax before the city allowed any sales. Measure A, approved on 8 Apr 2014 with 74.0 percent of the vote, authorized a tax of 6 to 10 percent on medical marijuana sales, two years before Measure MM repealed the city's ban on marijuana businesses with 60.14 percent. On that same November 2016 ballot, Proposition 64 carried Los Angeles County with 59.5 percent of the vote.

Only in private homes and on private land, and only with the owner's permission. The city's guidance says smoking or vaping medicinal cannabis, and using adult-use cannabis in any form, edibles included, is not legal in any public space. State law adds two more limits: no smoking cannabis wherever tobacco is off limits, and none within 1,000 feet of schools, day care centers or youth centers at times when children are there; e-cigarettes and vape pens count as smoking under Health and Safety Code 11362.3. Using cannabis in public carries an infraction fine capped at $100, and smoking it where tobacco is banned can cost as much as $250 under Health and Safety Code 11362.4.

That rules out the waterfront. The city's Health and Human Services Department lists parks, beaches, bus stops, farmers markets and the 20 feet around state, county and city buildings as outdoor no-smoking areas, and the Shoreline Pedestrian Bikepath, 3.1 miles from Alamitos Avenue to 54th Place, is a concrete trail built on the beach. Rainbow Harbor, which the city places between Shoreline Village and the Aquarium of the Pacific, and the streets of downtown are public places, where state law forbids smoking or eating cannabis.

Indoors is no easier. The city bars cannabis use at every Long Beach business, and SB 626 has made every hotel, motel and other transient lodging in California smoke-free since 1 Jan 2024, the Queen Mary's hotel rooms among them. DCC's consumer guidance adds that most hotels bar guests from using cannabis in their rooms, so check the hotel's policy before you bring edibles back.

Getting around brings more limits. Long Beach Transit prohibits smoking, vaping and controlled substances on its buses, water taxis and property, Metro bans smoking and illegal drugs on the A Line, and California law forbids using cannabis in a car, by the driver or by a passenger.

No lounges. LBMC 5.92.810 forbids consuming cannabis on the premises of any adult-use cannabis business, and the city tells residents and visitors they cannot use cannabis at a licensed dispensary or any other business in Long Beach. Business and Professions Code 26200(g), as rewritten by AB 1775 in 2024, would let a city allow on-site smoking, vaping or eating at a licensed retailer once listed conditions are met, but Long Beach's code keeps the ban. The smoking lounge on Jet Room's website belongs to its store in Adelanto, a different city.

Cannabis special events are another matter. Following a feasibility study and a council request on 15 Apr 2025 for a temporary waiver allowing public cannabis consumption during such events, the council added Division XIII to Chapter 5.92, and the ordinance took effect on 17 May 2026. An organizer now needs a city special event permit, a cannabis event organizer license and a temporary cannabis event license from DCC, and the city's timeline lists a resolution limiting each organizer to 12 permits a year.

State rules govern what happens inside. Only people 21 and over may enter the area where cannabis is consumed, the use may not be visible from any public place or non-age-restricted area, alcohol and tobacco are not allowed on the premises, and the local jurisdiction's own consumption rules still apply (4 CCR 15603). Before buying a ticket to a cannabis event in the city, check that the organizer names its DCC licenses and city permit.

Long Beach Airport, a city-owned and city-run field also called Daugherty Field, is a public place where state law bars cannabis use, and its Rules and Regulations ban smoking near fuel storage, aircraft movement areas, passenger and cargo ramps and anywhere signs prohibit it (Section 2.13). TSA's screeners are not searching for drugs, the agency says, but they pass any illegal substance they discover to law enforcement, and DCC warns that carrying cannabis across state lines is illegal under federal law. Leave any cannabis behind before you fly.

Carnival owns and operates the Long Beach Cruise Terminal under a long-term city lease and sails from it to Baja Mexico, the Mexican Riviera and Hawaii. Its ticket contract says marijuana, cannabis and their derivatives may not be brought aboard any Carnival ship, even where they are legal, and CBP says medical and recreational marijuana both remain illegal under federal law, which its officers apply at U.S. ports of entry. Long Beach Transit gives the two a single stop, Queen Mary / Cruise Terminal, on its Passport route.

Catalina Express boats leave from Catalina Landing at 320 Golden Shore, and the crossing to Avalon takes about an hour. The company's travel policies note that the U.S. Coast Guard enforces a zero-tolerance policy on illegal drugs aboard all passenger vessels. Avalon is its own city on Catalina Island, and California's ban on cannabis use in public places applies there as it does in Long Beach.

On federal property, such as the Tibor Rubin VA Medical Center at 5901 East 7th Street, federal law decides. DCC lists national parks and other federal lands among the places where cannabis may be neither used nor possessed, and 21 U.S.C. 844 still makes simple possession of a controlled substance a crime, whatever a California receipt says.

You will need ID proving you are at least 21; under state rules a foreign passport works as well as a U.S. one, Jet Room names passports among the IDs it takes, and LB Green Room accepts out-of-state cards that carry a scannable barcode. Catalyst says that anyone 18 to 20 must bring a physician's recommendation just to come in, and the state's daily ceiling, 8 grams of concentrate and 28.5 grams of other cannabis per adult-use buyer, applies at every counter.

Confirm the license before you pay. DCC requires retailers to show their state license in the window, with a QR code that reveals whether it is active, and Long Beach dispensaries also post the city's Licensed Cannabis Store Emblem, whose QR code checks the city license. The city warns that unlicensed stores sell untested products and takes anonymous tips on its Cannabis Complaint Hotline at (562) 570-5250.

Know where you will use your purchase before you leave the counter. In Long Beach that means a private home or rental that allows it; not a hotel room for smoking, not the beach or a park, and never the airport, a Carnival ship, the Catalina Express or federal land.