With recreational cannabis becoming legal in California, the county decides whether to join in.

Drive by existing cultivation sites, and you can smell the cannabis. That’s literally, where operators are already growing medical marijuana and also figuratively, as businesses race toward Jan. 1, when recreational pot becomes legal in California.

After voters approved Proposition 64 last year, the state launched into a regulatory process to get ready to implement the Adult Use of Marijuana Act. On Nov. 16, the California Bureau of Cannabis Control issued proposed emergency regulations – “necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, safety, or general welfare,” according to the official notice. They’re 115 pages of rules governing everything from requirements for what must be printed on delivery receipts (weight and volume of the order) to limits on THC per-serving in edibles (not to exceed 10 milligrams).

The comment period for the proposed state regulations ends on Dec. 4. On Dec. 5, the Monterey County Board of Supervisors is set to take a second and final vote on whether to legalize recreational marijuana locally. (Whatever details the state settles on, to receive a state permit, an applicant will be required to first secure a local county or city permit.)

The supervisors will consider approving an ordinance and making zoning adjustments (with the blessing of the Planning Commission, which voted 6-0 on Nov. 15 to recommend approval) that would greenlight recreational. If approved, the ordinance will take effect Jan. 5.

Once it does, applicants will apply for either an “M” for medicinal, or “A” for adult-use (21 and up only) permit, or both. County planners have issued only three medical permits to date, Senior Planner Craig Spencer says, with upward of 90 pending. It’s not entirely clear what will happen to businesses that applied for medical permits before recreational is available.

“They’ve all been medical, and will continue to operate as medical businesses, until they get a county permit and a state license,” Spencer says. “There are no grandfathered adult-use cannabis adult use operations.”