La Mesa, CA Public Conduct: Public Marijuana Use (2026)

Adopted alongside the city's broader marijuana-related activities chapter, section 10.42.050 regulates personal, as opposed to commercial, marijuana conduct. Subsection A prohibits personal use, possession, purchase, transport or dissemination of marijuana in the city to the extent state law allows a local ban, while subsection B separately bars planting, cultivating, harvesting, drying or processing marijuana plants outdoors anywhere in La Mesa, foreclosing any use permit, building permit, variance or other entitlement for that activity. Subsection C is the public-use rule at issue here: no person may possess, smoke or ingest marijuana in a public place, defined to include places open to the general public, or in any location where the code already prohibits smoking, layering the marijuana ban on top of La Mesa's separate smoking restrictions.

Subsection D extends the same possess-smoke-ingest prohibition to any building the city owns, leases or occupies, covering city hall, libraries, community centers and similar facilities regardless of whether the space is otherwise open to the public. Chapter 10.42 as a whole implements Measure U, the city's local marijuana framework, and states that nothing in the chapter overrides applicable state law; enforcement of the public-use ban does not depend on a commercial license or conditional use permit, since it targets personal conduct rather than business operations.