The controversial P.G. cannabis license lottery is set for Monday, June 15.

There will be one winner at the Pacific Grove retail cannabis license lottery at 5pm on Monday, June 15, inside City Hall, and despite the fact there were 10 applications approved to participate, there will be only two actual losers.

That's because eight of the 10 applications are connected to only one cannabis company, Off the Charts. People have cried foul, alleging that Off the Charts representatives engaged in "permit stacking."

The lottery to pick who will get the lone license was originally scheduled for March 30, but a vote of the P.G. City Council on March 18 delayed the lottery to try to answer questions surrounding the process.

The Council picked up the matter again on May 20, hearing from legal counsel that the city had followed all of their stated rules and therefore if they held the lottery they would have a defensible position in court if anyone challenged the outcome of the lottery.

Their only choices were to move ahead with the lottery or start from scratch.

Councilmember Lori McDonnell noted that the Council wanted to be fair all along, but the "spirit of the goal" had not been achieved.

"We're kind of stuck now," she said.

Councilmember Tina Rau pointed out the city had already spent time and money on the process as is, which led her to conclude they should "follow the process and move forward in a legally defensible way." 

When the vote was taken, councilmembers glumly voted yes in favor of moving ahead with the lottery. 

"A not resounding 'aye,'" McDonnell said.

The vote was 5-1, with Mayor Nick Smith absent and one Council seat vacant at that time.

Besides Off the Charts, the other two companies in the lottery are Embarc Dispensary and Nug Pacific Grove.

Only two locations for a retail cannabis store are being considered, both in the Forest Hill Business District: 1157 Forest Ave. and 1169 Forest Ave.