Changing attitudes, rising city costs and the experience of a neighboring city have brought marijuana back into the conversation in Sutherlin. Ten years after city leaders prohibited marijuana businesses, voters will decide whether it’s time to lift the ban.
In 2016, the Sutherlin City Council prohibited medical and recreational marijuana businesses within city limits. This November, Measure 10-217 asks voters to repeal that prohibition.
A companion measure, 10-218, would authorize a 3% local tax on recreational marijuana sales. The tax would take effect only if the prohibition is repealed and retail marijuana sales are subsequently allowed.
City Manager Kurt Sorenson said the measures grew out of conversations with residents who brought the issue before the council.
“During our city council meetings, you’d kind of be surprised at some of the people who talked in favor of having a marijuana dispensary in town,” Sorenson said. “So, times change and people’s views of marijuana sometimes change too.”
Looking south to Winston
Part of that changing conversation has been playing out just down Interstate 5.
Sorenson said interest in Sutherlin increased after nearby Winston changed its rules in 2025 to allow marijuana businesses. A dispensary opened there this spring.
The timing was significant for Sutherlin for another reason. Voters there repealed the city’s public safety fee this past spring, and residents began talking about whether marijuana sales might provide another source of city revenue.
Sorenson cautioned there is no way to know how much money a dispensary would generate. But with inflation pushing up municipal costs, he said additional revenue could help support city services and projects.
Oregon recreational marijuana sales are already subject to a 17% state tax. State law also allows cities and counties, with voter approval, to impose a local tax of up to 3%.
Sutherlin could also potentially receive a share of state marijuana tax revenue. The city portion of that revenue is distributed in part according to the number of licensed marijuana premises within qualifying cities.
A vote would be only the beginning
Approval would not mean a dispensary could immediately set up shop.
Sorenson said the city would still need to develop restrictions governing marijuana businesses, including zoning and distance requirements.
For Sorenson, who spent years in Sutherlin as a police officer before becoming city manager, putting the question before voters makes sense given the city’s history.
The council could have taken a different course, he said, but opted to let residents reconsider the policy established a decade ago.
“I think they made the right one by taking it to the voters,” Sorenson said.
