The Sacramento Valley’s most developed county program — Measure K voters approved a 4%/5% gross-receipts tax with 79% yes in June 2018, Article 14 caps countywide Use Permits at 65 (no more than 5 in Capay Valley), and four city programs run separate tracks. New applications closed. Here’s the pathway.
Every figure below is sourced to a Yolo County document or recent reporting — see each card. These are the four regulatory surfaces we’re most often called in on, and the real scale of what they cost when handled alone.
Article 14 caps Yolo County Cannabis Use Permits at 65 countywide, with no more than 5 in Capay Valley. Eligible licensees limited to ~78, and Yolo is not accepting new applications. Entry is by transfer only. (Yolo County Cannabis FAQs)
Measure K passed in June 2018 with 79% voter approval at 4% cultivation / 5% other commercial activity. Cultivation rate stepped up to 5% on July 1, 2020. Delinquency triggers penalties under county administration. (Yolo Cannabis Tax)
City of Davis Ordinance 2633, effective January 2023, caps dispensaries at 5 — with applications closed indefinitely. The city runs its own Cannabis Business Tax separate from Measure K. (City of Davis Cannabis Info)
Yolo County applies a 1,000-ft sensitive-use buffer from schools and youth-serving facilities under Article 14 — wider than most Sacramento-region counties. A new school within the buffer can force CUP reconsideration; verify before lease-up.
This is the work we do: Article 14 CUP transfer and continuation packets, Measure K tax reconciliation against Metrc throughput, City-of-Davis Ordinance 2633 interpretation for the 5-dispensary roster, Capay Valley sub-cap zoning verification, and West Sacramento / Woodland parallel-city pathway coordination. Most of our Yolo work comes by referral from operators who tried to navigate the Capay sub-cap or the Measure K step-up alone.
Yolo County runs one of the most developed county-level commercial cannabis programs in the Sacramento Valley — and one of the tightest. The primary pathway in unincorporated Yolo is the Cannabis Use Permit (CUP) under Article 14 of the Land Use Ordinance, administered by the Community Services Department. Article 14 caps total Use Permits at 65 countywide, with a sub-cap of no more than 5 in Capay Valley; eligible licensees are limited to roughly 78. The county is not accepting new applications — entry is by transfer or succession only, which makes the existing permit roster the strategic asset.
The county’s signature tax framework is Measure K, approved by Yolo voters in June 2018 with 79% yes — one of the highest approval margins any California county cannabis tax has ever received (CapRadio). Measure K started at 4% gross receipts for cultivation and 5% for all other commercial cannabis activity; the cultivation rate stepped up to 5% on July 1, 2020, so all license categories now remit at 5% of gross receipts. Under Article 14, outdoor and mixed-light cultivation are the prioritized categories — no new retail permits are issued in the unincorporated county. The sensitive-use buffer is 1,000 ft from schools and youth-serving facilities, wider than neighboring Sacramento County.
Outside the unincorporated county, the city picture diverges sharply. The City of Davis runs its own program under Ordinance 2633 (effective January 2023) with a hard cap of 5 retail dispensaries and applications closed indefinitely. The City of West Sacramento runs the broadest Yolo city program — retail, distribution, manufacturing, cultivation, and testing under its own business-permit ordinance. The City of Woodland permits retail and manufacturing. Winters bans commercial activity. Yolo’s map is therefore four distinct local pathways stitched to a closed county program — most operators who aren’t already on the county roster work a Davis, Woodland, or West Sacramento city track instead.
Enforcement in Yolo is coordinated between the County Sheriff, County Environmental Health, DCC investigators, and CDTFA. The dominant compliance friction is Measure K gross-receipts reconciliation — the county administers its own cannabis-tax collection, and late or under-reported returns trigger county-level penalties on top of CDTFA exposure. For cultivators, the Capay Valley sub-cap of 5 is the live constraint: packet filings that would breach the sub-cap are denied at intake. Unpermitted cultivation in unincorporated Yolo is treated as a misdemeanor with abatement fees under Article 14.
Figures sourced from the Yolo County Cannabis FAQs, the Yolo County Cannabis Tax page, the June 2018 Measure K results, and the City of Davis Cannabis Information page. Counts shift — verify with the Yolo County Community Services Department and the DCC license lookup before acting.
Six inflection points in the Yolo County and City-of-Davis cannabis programs — from the 2016 interim cultivation ordinance through the 2024 decision to stop accepting new CUP applications.
County adopts interim rules permitting cultivation while Article 14 is drafted — the first legal foothold for Yolo cultivators.
County adopts Ordinance 1496 authorizing the tax; Measure K passes 79% yes in June 2018 at 4% cultivation / 5% other.
Permanent Cannabis Land Use Ordinance takes effect — 65-CUP countywide cap, 5-CUP Capay Valley sub-cap, 1,000-ft sensitive-use buffer.
Measure K cultivation rate steps from 4% to 5%, aligning all license categories at the same gross-receipts rate.
Davis caps dispensaries at 5 and opens limited application window; program closes with 5 storefronts on the roster.
Yolo County formally stops accepting new CUP applications. Entry is transfer- or succession-only going forward.
Qualitative shape of the combined Yolo County and Yolo-city cannabis footprint. Unincorporated Yolo is cultivation-weighted under Article 14 with no new retail; the cities (Davis, Woodland, West Sacramento) carry the retail / distribution / manufacturing load.
Composition is qualitative — Yolo does not publish a standardized active-license count by category in a consolidated table. For exact counts, use the DCC Unified License Search filtered to Yolo, and the Article 14 ordinance.
Three Yolo County cities run active cannabis programs. Winters bans. Click through for each city's local pathway, zoning map, and tax rates.
Retail (cap 5, closed) under Ordinance 2633. City Cannabis Business Tax on top of Measure K.
Full stack — retail, distribution, mfg, cultivation, testing. Cannabis Business Permit + CUP.
Retail + manufacturing. Cannabis Business Permit + CUP.
Measure K passed in June 2018 with 79% yes, and took effect at 4% gross receipts for cultivation and 5% for all other commercial activity. The cultivation rate stepped up to 5% on July 1, 2020, aligning every license category at the same rate. Year-by-year revenue totals are not published in a consolidated county table — the anchor below shows the rate structure.
Sources: CapRadio on the June 2018 Measure K passage (79% yes), and the Yolo County Cannabis Tax page on the July 1, 2020 cultivation step-up. Consolidated year-by-year Measure K revenue figures are not published on the county site — contact County Financial Services for current totals.
From the Yolo County Cannabis FAQs and the City of Davis Cannabis Information page. The county does not publish median-days-to-issuance — these are the caps and rates the county and Davis do report.
Sources: CapRadio on the Measure K 79% yes vote; Yolo County Cannabis FAQs on the 65-CUP cap; Article 14 for the 1,000-ft buffer; Humboldt comparison from the Humboldt County Planning & Building May 2024 review.
A non-exhaustive list of Yolo County and Yolo-city cannabis operators cited in local reporting and on public city/county pages. Verify current license status with the DCC Unified License Search.
Embarc’s Woodland storefront, part of the Embarc multi-city California retail network — a central example of a Yolo city-pathway retail operator (Embarc).
City of Davis retail operator on the Ordinance 2633 closed-cap roster (Davis Cannabis Collective).
Capay Valley cultivation operator referenced in county reporting — one of the Capay Valley sub-cap holders working under Article 14.
Yolo County cultivation operator on the Article 14 CUP roster, representative of the county’s cultivation-weighted permit composition.
From Article 14 CUP transfer through DCC issuance, through Measure K reconciliation, through City-of-Davis Ordinance 2633 interpretation, to 24-hour enforcement defense — your Yolo regulatory lift runs through one named team.
DCC cultivation, retail, distribution, and manufacturing applications coordinated with Article 14 or the relevant Yolo-city pathway.
Yolo County Community Services CUP transfer / continuation packets; Capay Valley sub-cap verification.
Monthly gross-receipts reconciliation against Metrc throughput; county-level + CDTFA cross-check.
