SACRAMENTO, a bill letting California cannabis dispensaries serve customers through drive-thru windows cleared a key legislative committee Tuesday, advancing a proposal that supporters say would help licensed retailers compete with the illicit market by making legal purchases easier for older and disabled customers.

The Assembly Business and Professions Committee approved AB 2697 in a 17-2 vote. The measure would allow licensed cannabis retailers and microbusinesses with storefronts to sell cannabis products “to a customer in a motor vehicle in a drive-through located on the premises,” provided local jurisdictions sign off first.

Assemblymember Gail Pellerin, a Democrat who authored the bill, told committee colleagues that current law creates a patchwork that doesn’t make sense. Licensed dispensaries can offer curbside pickup, a practice that took hold during the COVID-19 pandemic, but they generally can’t complete a sale to a customer sitting in a car at a drive-thru window. That’s the gap AB 2697 targets.

“AB 2697 seeks to address this regulatory inconsistency by allowing drive through cannabis sales subject to the local jurisdictions’ approval,” Pellerin told colleagues ahead of the vote. She also said the bill requires sales to go through “a fixed pane, security window and security drawer,” and that only walk-in storefronts could add the option.

Annie Aubrey, representing Chuck’s Wellness Center in Placerville, put a face on the access argument. She told lawmakers that seniors, veterans, and people with chronic conditions affecting mobility make up a meaningful slice of her customer base, and that getting in and out of a car to navigate a retail space isn’t a minor inconvenience for them. It’s a barrier.

“A drive-thru option removes that barrier allowing patients and consumers to access what they need in a way that is dignified and consistent with their health needs,” Aubrey said.

That framing matters. California’s licensed cannabis market has struggled to pull customers away from unlicensed sellers who operate without the overhead that comes with state compliance. Taxes, licensing fees, mandatory testing, and security requirements all make legal cannabis more expensive and, in some cases, less convenient than buying from an illicit source. Anything that closes that convenience gap has potential market consequences.

Not everyone was convinced. Some concern surfaced about whether drive-thru windows might encourage people to consume before driving away.

Amy O’Gorman Jenkins of the California Cannabis Operators Association pushed back on that directly. “Every cannabis transaction already begins and ends with a person arriving and departing, mostly in a vehicle,” she told the committee. “There is no data indicating that the manner of purchase, whether inside, curbside or drive through changes consumer behavior behind the wheel.”

That’s a point worth sitting with. California already allows alcohol sales through drive-thrus at certain retailers in some jurisdictions. Cannabis, which carries far stricter regulations under the Department of Cannabis Control, would face additional local approval requirements that alcohol drive-thrus typically don’t. The regulatory asymmetry runs in cannabis’s disfavor, not its favor.

Pellerin’s bill now goes to the Assembly Appropriations Committee, as Marijuana Moment reported when the committee vote came through. After that, it would need a full floor vote before heading to the Senate.

The local approval requirement built into AB 2697 is both a feature and a potential limitation. Cities and counties across California have taken wildly different approaches to cannabis retail. Some municipalities in Los Angeles County have no licensed dispensaries at all. Others, like Palm Springs, have embraced the industry. A drive-thru option means nothing in jurisdictions that ban cannabis retail outright, and even in places where dispensaries operate, local councils could simply decline to permit the new format without any obligation to explain why.

Still, for dispensaries in cannabis-friendly communities, the bill could open a practical new service channel. Seniors who struggle with mobility. Veterans managing pain. Customers in rural areas who don’t want to park and walk. These aren’t abstract policy categories. They’re real people who currently have to choose between physical difficulty and buying from someone who doesn’t pay taxes, doesn’t test products, and doesn’t operate under any consumer protection framework.

Pellerin’s argument is that a legal system built around safety and access should actually be accessible. The 17-2 vote in committee suggests most of her colleagues on the Business and Professions panel agreed. The harder votes may still be ahead, but AB 2697 cleared its first test without much resistance, and the debate over impaired driving produced no evidence that drive-thru windows cause the problem critics worry about.