Union City is in the process of potentially approving its first ever marijuana dispensary.

At a city council meeting on April 24, the council voted to “intend to award a permit” to Eden Campus Holdings, LLC, owned by Soufyan Abouahmed and Shareef El-Sissi. They will still need to complete a final plan check before going before the board again for approval.

Abouahmed and El-Sissi are the co-founders and principals of Eden Campus Holdings, which currently has a location in unincorporated Hayward on Foothill Boulevard called the Garden of Eden. They are also the co-founder of TREEZ, which is a software company that tracks cannabis from the earliest seed stages to the sale of the products.

Union City has never had a dispensary within its city limits before and medical marijuana dispensaries were officially banned since 2005.

City officials did not comment on why they chose to ban dispensaries in 2005.

The city council approved commercial dispensaries to be allowed into the city in September 2017 and applications are required to be submitted for a permit.

The city accepted applications between Jan. 1-25 of this year and the city’s consultant companies as well as the City Selection Committee looked over each application and evaluated them in a four-phase process.

“We recognize that we have medicinal cannabis users in Union City,” Lt. Travis Souza of the Union City Police Department told The Pioneer. “Our hope is that the opening of a legal dispensary will provide a safer local alternative for medicinal cannabis use.”

If approved, the Union City location would potentially distribute, manufacture, cultivate and sell, according to El-Sissi.
The Union City location would be the headquarters for the Hayward dispensary Garden of Eden. There will be a town hall meeting this month to address all questions and concerns.