Marijuana — contrary to the line some are selling to Manteca residents — is not going to generate truckloads of “Acapulco gold” for municipal coffers.

The $3 million in Modesto city revenue from marijuana transactions some proponents of legalizing retail cannabis sales in Manteca dangled in front of the public as a carrot is more like fool’s gold when it comes to The Family City.

Call it the legal fireworks sales effect.

Remember back in 2005 when Manteca became the first city in the region to allow the legal sale of safe and sane fireworks?

Non-profits that won the lottery to sell them for a week reported sales ranging between $7,000 and $35,000 for the first several years.

That’s because people were driving in from Ripon, Tracy, Lathrop, and Stockton to buy legal fireworks.

But then as other nearby cities started making it OK for non-profits to sell legal fireworks, the profits of Manteca booth operators plunged.

Once Manteca’s three “trial” storefront dispensaries open and one being allowed in Lathrop by that city’s elected leaders does as well, Modesto’s pot of marijuana taxes will shrink accordingly.

Manteca will not enjoy the level of front-end monetary success that those who first stepped up to the plate have in places such as Modesto and Ceres.

It’s no different than Chick-fil-A.

People who are so addicted to a relatively expensive fast-food version of chicken parts that were willing to drive from Modesto and Stockton to wait in line for 45 minutes on a Saturday are going to opt to patronize Chick-fil-A locations that open closer to them.

There will still be steady business at the Manteca Chick-fil-A based on local demand and the Bay Area-to-Sierra traveling public’s hankering for a chicken sandwich but it isn’t going to be a downpour of money.

There is still a fair amount of money Manteca city government will rake in, but it isn’t going to be the pots of gold that Mayor Ben Cantu keeps implying will flow. In fairness to the mayor, he may not expect people to see major tangible benefits from marijuana receipts such as a new swimming pool and such, but if you glean the buzz on social media it seems half the posters are convinced the city will be buried under money they can spend on things besides consultant reports, covering the unfunded pension deficit, paying for wage increases.

And if everyone is being honest, the four new police personnel the city needs to monitor the pot shops won’t be doing much more than that unless it is to plug shortfalls that occur with staffing due to how Manteca historically uses borderline starvation funding for law enforcement.

Examples include the inability to retain two dedicated community resource officers for homeless issues let alone being able to tackle on an ongoing basis promises a previous council made they would also help pump up the effectiveness of neighborhood watch programs.

There is also a huge shortage developing nationwide in qualified manpower for front-line police position. Manteca will not be immune from the trend.

Take no comfort that City Manager Toby Wells is borrowing a page from the well-worn Manteca municipal fiscal management playbook by promising not to ramp up police personnel needed to stay on top of marijuana business concerns until permits are being issued and the money rolling in.

The is a huge historic time lag in hiring police once they are authorized by councils and when they are actually on the streets that is borderline criminal.

The last thing Manteca needs to do is employ the same approach to ramping up staffing needed to deliver on regulations and enforcement levels being promised when it comes to storefront marijuana dispensaries. Take little comfort in the fact it works well elsewhere. As Cantu likes to remind everyone, Manteca has a well-earned reputation of being penny wise and pound foolish.

What is likely to happen at least initially in making sure legal marijuana sales are ironclad is likely to overburden Manteca Police if adequate staffing is not onboard from the start. If the situation is well managed by Police Chief Mike Aguilar the best case scenario will be a significant spike in expensive police overtime so the level of protection and service for the community is not diminished by the need to deliver 100 percent on marijuana safety and security issues.

You can also rest assured that top level bureaucrats will collapse the four new police personnel needed primarily to enforce the marijuana sales ordinance into overall manpower totals and tell the public that they’ve effectively increase community police staffing.

We will get increased police staffing that would not be justified — or arguably needed — if it were not for allowing three marijuana dispensaries to open in Manteca.

At the same time it is almost laughable that it was tossed out at Tuesday’s council meeting that marijuana proceeds could even finance a new police station that has been justifiably needed now in Manteca for going on two decades.

That’s because under rules the city will enforce on the sales rooms of the gleaming new marijuana dispensaries complete with armed guards they will be more secure than the Manteca Police Department lobby.

It should be noted Councilman Gary Singh in staking out his position in approving the marijuana sales ordinance didn’t buy into the fantasy that it would make Manteca golden. There will be revenue but it won’t be endless riches as some assume.

What has taken place with marijuana is much like the approval of the California lottery back in the 1970s by politicians and gambling advocates leaving people with the impression it would be a panacea for school funding.

Singh has no such illusions.

He does get that it is a much safer way for law-abiding citizens that can legally use marijuana to access it in Manteca without buying from the quasi-legal neighborhood grower with absolutely no testing to assure there are no harmful chemicals or dangerous levels of THC.

Charlie Halford, the third vote to make storefront marijuana sales legal in Manteca, is likely correct that many people in Manteca are ambivalent on the issue.

And whether the black market increases or decreases, the city has created an option where law-abiding citizens can partake in a legal substance under California law by not having to drive out of town or rely on delivery services. And those legal marijuana items undergo more rigorous testing than many food products.

The real problem is overselling it as the equivalent of the city striking the Mother Lode and making assurances that it will somehow weaken the black market.

There is a real concern that this could be 2005 all over again.

Not only did the financial returns shrink from legal fireworks sales but they also helped jack up public safety issues that increased pressure on the fire department.

It also includes the biggest lie of them all: Legalizing the sale and use of safe and sane fireworks would diminish the launching of illegal fireworks in Manteca.

 This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com