215 Consultation

OAKLAND — After weathering the fear of federal prosecution and competition from drug cartels, California’s medical marijuana growers see a new threat to their tenuous existence: the “Wal-Marting” of weed.

The Oakland City Council on Tuesday will look at licensing four medical marijuana cultivation sites where pot would be grown, packaged and processed into items ranging from baked goods to body oil, the Associated Press reports in the Sacramento Bee. Winning applicants would have to pay $211,000 in annual permit fees, carry $2 million worth of liability insurance and be prepared to devote up to 8 percent of gross sales to taxes.

The move, and fledgling efforts in other California cities to sanction cannabis cultivation for the first time, has some marijuana advocates worried that regulations intended to bring order to the outlaw industry and new revenues to cash-strapped local governments could drive small “mom and pop” growers out of business. They complain that industrial-scale gardens would harm the environment, reduce quality and leave consumers with fewer strains from which to choose.

“Nobody wants to see the McDonald’s-ization of cannabis,” Dan Scully, one of the 400 “patient-growers” who supply Oakland’s largest retail medical marijuana dispensary, Harborside Health Center, grumbled after a City Council committee gave the blueprint preliminary approval last week. “I would compare it to how a small business feels about shutting down its business and going to work at Wal-Mart. Who would be attracted to that?”

The proposal’s supporters, including entrepreneurs more disposed to neckties than tie-dye, counter that unregulated growers working in covert warehouses or houses are tax scofflaws more likely to wreak environmental havoc, be motivated purely by profit and produce inferior products.

“The large-scale grow facilities that are being proposed with this ordinance will create hundreds of jobs for the city,” said Ryan Indigo Warman, who teaches pot-growing techniques at iGrow, a hydroponics store whose owners plan to apply for one of the four permits. “The ordinance is good for Oakland, and anyone who says otherwise is only protecting their own interests.”

Council members Rebecca Kaplan and Larry Reid, who introduced the plan, have pitched it largely as a public safety measure.

The Oakland fire department blames a dramatic rise in the number of electrical fires between 2006 and 2009 in part to marijuana being grown indoors with improperly wired fans and lights. The police department says eight robberies, seven burglaries and two murders have been linked to marijuana grows in the last two years.

Reid and Kaplan also are open about their desire to have the city, which last week laid off 80 police officers to save money, cash in on the medical marijuana industry it has allowed to thrive.

Oakland’s four retail marijuana stores did $28 million in business last year, and if sales remain constant, the city would get $1.5 million this year from a dispensary business tax that voters adopted last summer. A similar tax on wholesale pot sales from the permitted grow sites to the dispensaries would bring in more than twice that amount, the city administrator’s office has estimated.

“Allowing medical cannabis and medical cannabis products to be produced in a responsible, aboveboard and legitimate way will be a benefit to the patients, to the workers and to the people of Oakland,” Kaplan said.

Adding to the anxiety of growers – and the impetus Oakland officials have to get the grow tax in place – is a November state ballot measure to legalize marijuana possession for adult recreational use and authorize local governments to license and tax non-medical pot sales.

If it passes, Proposition 19 is expected to feed the state’s hearty appetite for marijuana. Backers of creating the four big indoor gardens say the plan is not dependent on legalization, but would benefit from it.

“The reality is, this is an issue that is going to grow. I would like it to grow here. I would like it to be Oakland business and not the tobacco industry,” Councilwoman Jean Quan said.

Regulating the supply side of the business would represent another turning point in California’s complicated, 14-year-old relationship with medical marijuana. Although Maine, New Mexico and Rhode Island license nonprofit groups to produce and distribute cannabis, California’s law is silent on cultivation other than for individual use.

Even as hundreds of storefront pot dispensaries, marijuana delivery services and THC-laced food products have flourished, the question of where they get their stashes remains murky: Inquiring is considered as impolite as asking someone’s income or age.

Industry insiders usually say they rely on a variety of sources, including farmers who grow outdoors in the far northern end of the state, contractors who run sophisticated indoor operations, and customers who grow their own and sell the surplus.

Officials in Berkeley and Long Beach also are moving take the mystery out of medical marijuana production.

The Berkeley City Council last week approved a measure for the November ballot that would authorize the city to license and tax six pot cultivation sites. Companies running the facilities must agree to give away some pot to low-income users, employ organic gardening methods to the extent possible and offset in some way the large amount of electricity needed to grow weed.

Long Beach officials want to reduce the amount of medical marijuana being sold in the city that isn’t grown there.

The city is in the process of trying to whittle its more than 90 dispensaries down to no more than 35 marijuana collectives through a lottery. License winners will be required to grow either at their retail sites or elsewhere in Long Beach and to open their books to prove they aren’t growing more than enough to supply their members, said Lori Ann Farrell, Long Beach’s director of financial management.

Redding could join a host of California cities considering a tax on marijuana.

Vice Mayor Missy McArthur has asked her fellow City Council members to discuss the idea Tuesday of taxing medical cannabis sales at the city’s 19 permitted collectives.

McArthur said she wants Redding to be ready with a local tax in case voters approve Proposition 19 on Nov. 19. The measure would legalize marijuana cultivation and possession, the Redding Record Searchlight reports, and allow local government to tax commercial marijuana production and sales.

“I’m not pro-tax, but whenever you are doing something for your health, society has to pay for those things,” McArthur said. “Taxes on medical marijuana are like having taxes on cigarettes and alcohol.”

The city already charges cannabis clubs permit fees to cover the cost of police inspections, background checks and other compliance measures mandated by the city’s decision late last year to regulate these nonprofit enterprises.

The city faces an Aug. 3 deadline to prepare a medicinal cannabis sales tax measure for the November ballot.

Cannabis clubs already pay state sales taxes on their transactions. But at least one club owner said he favors a local tax in addition.

“Instead of the sales tax going to Sacramento and never being seen again in this community, this would be something that is directly taxes and go back to the Shasta Women’s Refuge or the jail,” said Allen Perry, who co-owns the River Valley Collective downtown.

Perry said he’s not concerned a local tax would make medicinal cannabis unaffordable. He compared the tax to tobacco taxes.

“I’m sure our patients here would understand those extra two pennies are going back to their neighborhood,” Perry said.

Other cities in California are considering broader taxes on all marijuana sales and production, should Prop. 19 pass.

Berkeley, Sacramento and Long Beach already have approved companion marijuana tax measures for the November ballot, which, if approved, would kick in if voters also approve Prop. 19. City officials have said the taxes would bring badly-needed revenue to their coffers.

Los Angeles, San Jose and the Sacramento suburb of Rancho Cordova are considering similar tax measures, according to news reports.

Oakland last June became the first city in the state and nation to tax cannabis collectives. The city imposes a 1.8 percent gross receipts tax on the four licensed medical cannabis dispensaries in town.

Oakland expects to collect $1.5 million in marijuana taxes this year.

Karen Kissler is the owner of a cozy, Tuscan-styled medical marijuana dispensary with an indoor granite fountain, plush black leather sofas and azure blue walls.

One thing her shop outside Santa Rosa city limits doesn’t have, though, is a legal license to operate from Sonoma County authorities.

Alternatives, A Health Collective opened on Santa Rosa Avenue in February, two months after the county’s 2007 ordinance on pot dispensaries was struck down by a Sonoma County Superior Court judge, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat reports.

But last month, a state appellate court sided with the county and temporarily reinstated the ordinance until a final ruling, which isn’t expected for several months.
Ulysses Proteau of Santa Rosa smells samples of marijuana last week at Alternatives, a Sonoma County marijuana dispensary that is seeking a county permit to operate.

Ulysses Proteau of Santa Rosa smells samples of marijuana last week at Alternatives, a Sonoma County marijuana dispensary that is seeking a county permit to operate. Photo by John Burgess/Santa Rosa Press Democrat

Until then, Kissler and at least five other dispensaries that have been operating without permits are under new orders issued by the county last week. They must either cease operations immediately or begin applying for a costly permit that could make them legal.

Kissler, like several other dispensary operators, has applied for a permit, subjecting her shop to rules that she believes need a major overhaul.

“If you comply with the ordinance and make efforts from inside (the legal system) to change it, it’s much more effective,” she said.

At least three other unpermitted dispensaries also have filed applications for a use permit, two of which were in the system before the recent appellate court decision, county officials said.

Enforcement actions against those dispensaries, the Starbuds Cannabis Club outside of Santa Rosa, Riverside Wellness in Guerneville and Redwood Herbal Alliance in Larkfield, will be held off as long as the owners “diligently pursue” a permit, said Pete Parkinson, director of the county’s Permit and Resource Management Department.

Parkinson added, however, that the stop-business order is immediate and that: “We can take enforcement actions at any time.”

He said the county’s approach is to evaluate each unpermitted dispensary’s response on a case-by-case basis, considering whether they could ultimately meet the zoning requirements, or if they present health and safety concerns.

At least one of the unpermitted dispensaries, Native Herbs, outside of Cotati at Stony Point Road and Highway 116, appears to have closed. County officials said the dispensary was located on land zoned for agriculture and could not have been permitted for that reason. Dispensaries are limited to areas zoned for commercial or limited-commercial uses.

Two other dispensaries, Marvin’s Gardens Cooperative in Guerneville and the Green House Wellness Center outside Sebastopol, are applying for permits, according to their representatives.

The three-page application requires extensive documentation, including maps and design drawings of each site, setbacks from other uses in the area, including schools, homes and conventional smokeshops, descriptions of security and patient-privacy rules and indemnification of the county in the event of any lawsuit.

Basic cost for the permit application was $4,764 last week, but has since gone up with other county fees to $5,805, plus $1,500 to $2,000 in referral fees.

For Marvin’s Gardens, the dispensary that touched off the legal battle with the county less than a year ago, that price tag is a bitter pill to swallow.

“The first time they took our money and didn’t give us a permit,” said Shawn Marvin Pina president of the Guerneville dispensary.

Formerly in Rio Nido, the dispensary sued the county in October after the county sent it a stop-business notice. Dispensary representatives said they were denied a permit and later refunded only half their $8,000 application fee. County officials say the dispensary had claimed that another dispensary was allowed to transfer its permit to Guerneville shop.

Pina, the cooperative’s president, said the dispensary is applying for a permit even though he considers the current ordinance “unfair and unjustified.”

He would not say specifically what he found objectionable about the ordinance, but added that “dispensaries have less problems than bars. What have they got that shows there’s crime going up? What’s the big deal?”

County officials said previously that they had received numerous complaints about the unpermitted dispensaries, including issues with increased traffic and security concerns. However, only four complaints have been lodged with the Permit and Resources Management Department, a code enforcement official said this week.

One was from a parent who was upset with the relocation of a bus stop away from one of the Guerneville dispensaries. Another was from a Sonoma County Sheriff’s detective concerned about what he thought was faulty wiring at the Starbuds facility. The detective made the observation while investigating an April 2 strong-arm robbery at the facility.

The other two were general complaints from a pair of competitors, including Peace in Medicine Healing Center inside the city of Sebastopol and OrganiCann, the Todd Road dispensary that is the only medical marijuana dealer operating under a county permit.

Those complaints have prompted some bitter feelings in the small circle of local medical marijuana shop operators.

“I believe that money is fouling the issue here,” said Jon Humphrey, chief executive of the Green House Wellness Center.

Among all the operators, Kissler has perhaps the most specific beef with the county’s ordinance. She says her current number of clients is up to 2,000, but under the county’s rules, because of the type of commercial zoning at the small strip-mall where she does business, she is only allowed to have 300 customers.

Kissler requested an exemption from that cap, adding another expense to the $5,500 permit application she filed last week. But if she doesn’t get the exemption from the county, she’ll likely be forced to split her clients with a spin-off shop or relocate altogether.

“It’s completely arbitrary,” she said the of the client limit.

County officials said the cap is in place to ensure compatibility with nearby residential areas. But Kissler, an attorney, said her whole intention in getting into the medical business was to add an air of respectability to the needs of the many chronically sick and terminally ill patients who use her product.

“I’m about as non-new-agey as you can get,” she said. The current ordinance is so rigid in certain areas and vague in others, including security measures, she and others said, that it scares away legitimate dispensary operators and thereby limits patients’ access to what is often a last-ditch health care option.

TIMELINE
Sonoma County’s medical marijuana dispensary ordinance

2007: Ordinance established.

Oct. 13, 2009: Marvin’s Gardens Cooperative sues county over ordinance.

Dec. 7, 2009: Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Robert Boyd strikes down ordinance.

June 24, 2010: First Appellate District Court in San Francisco temporarily reinstates ordinance.

July 6, 2010: County sends out violation orders to six dispensaries operating without permits.

Click to enlarge
Karen Kissler is the owner of Alternatives, A Health Collective, in Santa Rosa.

One thing her shop outside Santa Rosa city limits doesn’t have, though, is a legal license to operate from Sonoma County authorities.

Alternatives, A Health Collective opened on Santa Rosa Avenue in February, two months after the county’s 2007 ordinance on pot dispensaries was struck down by a Sonoma County Superior Court judge.

But last month, a state appellate court sided with the county and temporarily reinstated the ordinance until a final ruling, which isn’t expected for several months.

Until then, Kissler and at least five other dispensaries that have been operating without permits are under new orders issued by the county last week. They must either cease operations immediately or begin applying for a costly permit that could make them legal.

Kissler, like several other dispensary operators, has applied for a permit, subjecting her shop to rules that she believes need a major overhaul.

“If you comply with the ordinance and make efforts from inside (the legal system) to change it, it’s much more effective,” she said.

At least three other unpermitted dispensaries also have filed applications for a use permit, two of which were in the system before the recent appellate court decision, county officials said.

Enforcement actions against those dispensaries, the Starbuds Cannabis Club outside of Santa Rosa, Riverside Wellness in Guerneville and Redwood Herbal Alliance in Larkfield, will be held off as long as the owners “diligently pursue” a permit, said Pete Parkinson, director of the county’s Permit and Resource Management Department.

Parkinson added, however, that the stop-business order is immediate and that: “We can take enforcement actions at any time.”

He said the county’s approach is to evaluate each unpermitted dispensary’s response on a case-by-case basis, considering whether they could ultimately meet the zoning requirements, or if they present health and safety concerns.

At least one of the unpermitted dispensaries, Native Herbs, outside of Cotati at Stony Point Road and Highway 116, appears to have closed. County officials said the dispensary was located on land zoned for agriculture and could not have been permitted for that reason. Dispensaries are limited to areas zoned for commercial or limited-commercial uses.

Two other dispensaries, Marvin’s Gardens Cooperative in Guerneville and the Green House Wellness Center outside Sebastopol, are applying for permits, according to their representatives.

The three-page application requires extensive documentation, including maps and design drawings of each site, setbacks from other uses in the area, including schools, homes and conventional smokeshops, descriptions of security and patient-privacy rules and indemnification of the county in the event of any lawsuit.

Basic cost for the permit application was $4,764 last week, but has since gone up with other county fees to $5,805, plus $1,500 to $2,000 in referral fees.

For Marvin’s Gardens, the dispensary that touched off the legal battle with the county less than a year ago, that price tag is a bitter pill to swallow.

“The first time they took our money and didn’t give us a permit,” said Shawn Marvin Pina president of the Guerneville dispensary.

Formerly in Rio Nido, the dispensary sued the county in October after the county sent it a stop-business notice. Dispensary representatives said they were denied a permit and later refunded only half their $8,000 application fee. County officials say the dispensary had claimed that another dispensary was allowed to transfer its permit to Guerneville shop.

Pina, the cooperative’s president, said the dispensary is applying for a permit even though he considers the current ordinance “unfair and unjustified.”

He would not say specifically what he found objectionable about the ordinance, but added that “dispensaries have less problems than bars. What have they got that shows there’s crime going up? What’s the big deal?”

County officials said previously that they had received numerous complaints about the unpermitted dispensaries, including issues with increased traffic and security concerns. However, only four complaints have been lodged with the Permit and Resources Management Department, a code enforcement official said this week.

One was from a parent who was upset with the relocation of a bus stop away from one of the Guerneville dispensaries. Another was from a Sonoma County Sheriff’s detective concerned about what he thought was faulty wiring at the Starbuds facility. The detective made the observation while investigating an April 2 strong-arm robbery at the facility.

The other two were general complaints from a pair of competitors, including Peace in Medicine Healing Center inside the city of Sebastopol and OrganiCann, the Todd Road dispensary that is the only medical marijuana dealer operating under a county permit.

Those complaints have prompted some bitter feelings in the small circle of local medical marijuana shop operators.

“I believe that money is fouling the issue here,” said Jon Humphrey, chief executive of the Green House Wellness Center.

Among all the operators, Kissler has perhaps the most specific beef with the county’s ordinance. She says her current number of clients is up to 2,000, but under the county’s rules, because of the type of commercial zoning at the small strip-mall where she does business, she is only allowed to have 300 customers.

Kissler requested an exemption from that cap, adding another expense to the $5,500 permit application she filed last week. But if she doesn’t get the exemption from the county, she’ll likely be forced to split her clients with a spin-off shop or relocate altogether.

“It’s completely arbitrary,” she said the of the client limit.

County officials said the cap is in place to ensure compatibility with nearby residential areas. But Kissler, an attorney, said her whole intention in getting into the medical business was to add an air of respectability to the needs of the many chronically sick and terminally ill patients who use her product.

“I’m about as non-new-agey as you can get,” she said. The current ordinance is so rigid in certain areas and vague in others, including security measures, she and others said, that it scares away legitimate dispensary operators and thereby limits patients’ access to what is often a last-ditch health care option.

“We think that the county did not do its homework,” Kissler said. “I’m in favor of having an ordinance that better reflects our patients’ needs.”

Our friends over at www.weedjungle.com wanted us to throw them up on our blog with the launch of their new website.

It’s still in the beta stage but so far so good… check them out.

Long Beach could join several other California cities in seeking to boost city coffers by taxing marijuana.

The City Council on Tuesday will consider a proposal to place a measure on the November ballot that would levy a 5% tax on medical marijuana collectives.

Another tax of up to 10% on other marijuana businesses would go into effect only if California voters also pass Proposition 19, which would legalize, regulate and tax marijuana for recreational use.

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Long Beach’s proposal, drafted by the city’s Department of Financial Management, also calls for taxing medical marijuana cultivation sites at .0075 cents per square foot.

The growth of pot dispensaries — and the drug’s potential legalization statewide — has presented a rare opportunity for cities desperately searching for new revenues. Berkeley and Sacramento are considering similar measures.

Long Beach is facing an $18.5-million budget deficit, and for some on the city council, which voted in May to regulate medical marijuana collectives, taxation is the next logical step.

“We tax alcohol. We tax cigarettes. Why wouldn’t we look at taxing marijuana?” Long Beach Councilman Patrick O’Donnell said. “We’re turning over every rock to find new revenues, and under one of those rocks may be marijuana.”

Critics, however, say such a tax could unfairly target medical marijuana patients.

Americans for Safe Access, the nation’s leading medical marijuana advocacy group, opposes taxing medical marijuana because it believes the drub should be treated the same as any other doctor-prescribed medications, which are untaxed.

But if a tax must be enacted, spokesman Kris Hermes said, “the tax burden should be removed from the patient to the extent possible.”

“It’s difficult to tell cities that are cash-strapped in tough economic times that you can’t tax this substance,” he said. “But there are other methods that local governments could use to raise the money; one of those methods is to tax the production side.”

Long Beach Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske voiced similar frustrations, calling it “hypocritical” to tax marijuana because under current laws, it’s sold either as an illegal drug or as a pharmaceutical.

“If marijuana distributed at a collective is considered ‘medicine,’ how could we tax it?,” she wrote Friday in a blog post. “California does not tax pharmaceuticals — so how then is it okay to tax this medicine?”

As Long Beach debates whether to pursue taxation, it has at least one other city to look to as an example.

Oakland began collecting taxes from medical marijuana collectives in 2008 and expects to reap $1 million this year from a 1.8% tax on just four licensed dispensaries.

Several Los Angeles City Council members last year floated a proposal to tax medical marijuana, but the plan probably will not appear on a ballot until 2011, according to Councilwoman Janice Hahn’s office.

Los Angeles’ medical marijuana ordinance — one of the state’s most restrictive — went into effect last month, requiring the shutdown of more than 400 dispensaries.

In March, Long Beach passed its own sweeping ordinance regulating the dozens of pot dispensaries that have cropped up in recent years, establishing buffer zones of 1,000 to 1,500 feet around schools and barring the dispensaries from operating within 1,000 feet of one another.

Approving a marijuana tax in Long Beach would require a public hearing in August, an OK from the City Council and voter approval this fall. Since no local offices are up for election in November, the city would have to declare a fiscal emergency to get the measure on the ballot.

– Tony Barboza

It could soon become legal to open a medical marijuana dispensary in St.
Helena.

On Tuesday the city council voted 4-1 to direct staff to draft
regulations concerning marijuana dispensaries as quickly as possible.

City staff had asked the council to consider an urgency ordinance
placing a moratorium on new medical marijuana dispensaries, which are
not prohibited by current city regulations.

But councilmembers said any potential applicants should just hold off
until the regulations are adopted.

City Councilman Eric Sklar said his father, who died last January of
pancreatic cancer, benefited from medical marijuana.

“If it wasn’t for medical marijuana his last months would have
been miserable in a way they didn’t have to be,” said Sklar.

He said the city should adopt an ordinance within six to eight weeks
that would regulate how and where marijuana dispensaries could operate,
as well as how to handle any leftover product.

“We don’t want Bob Pestoni’s pigs getting stoned from eating
it out of the garbage,” Sklar joked. Pestoni is the owner of Upper
Valley Disposal Service.

In 2009 the city granted a business license to Napa Valley Marijuana
Growers, an Internet business operated by St. Helena resident Crane
Carter that sells marijuana-themed hats and T-shirts, but not marijuana
itself.

Planner Shelley Mills said the city has received an inquiry about
establishing a marijuana dispensary in St. Helena.

Carter, a vocal advocate for the legalization of marijuana, urged the
council to adopt an ordinance to regulate marijuana clinics and provide
easier access to medical marijuana for patients and hospice workers.

“There’s millions of people out there who can’t speak as I
do,” said Carter. “They’re at risk from their insurance
companies or their employers. I’m speaking for a lot of people.”

Carter said he would consider opening a dispensary, but he’d be
willing to wait for the council to adopt new regulations.

Mayor Del Britton cast the only vote opposing a new ordinance. He said
the city should look at the issue as part of its General Plan Update.

“I don’t have a problem with marijuana, but my fundamental
problem is can we do this somewhere else besides downtown?” said
Britton. “I just don’t like the idea of a marijuana shop
downtown.”

Sklar said that question will be part of the council’s discussion as
they craft the new ordinance.

Councilwoman Bonnie Schoch said the city can model the new regulations
on similar laws adopted successfully in other cities. “Let’s not
re-create the wheel,” she said.

The California Supreme Court recently shot down restrictions that
limited how much marijuana patients who are authorized to use the drug
are allowed to possess.

In addition to the sales of Lakers paraphernalia and water, some surprising entrepreneurs took to the parade route to sell their wares.

Among them was a mobile truck, Weed World Candies.com, selling marijuana lollipops in hues of orange and blue. (The truck itself is green with a photo mural of young women in bikinis sorting marijuana leaves.)

The assortment included brands of marijuana such as OG Kush and Grand Daddy Perp. The truck’s owner, Bilal Muhammad, said he was recently forced to shut down his store in West Hollywood and had taken his business on the road.

Customers approaching his truck were asked if they had a prescription card allowing them to purchase marijuana and then were handed a free lollipop.

“It’s been working out very well,” he said of business before driving away as police became visible in the distance.

So far, Muhammad was able to work without interruption from police.

– Gale Holland

Representatives of 174 medical marijuana dispensaries have filed notices with the Los Angeles city clerk, indicating that they intend to remain open. City officials now face the daunting task of determining whether those stores qualify to operate under the new ordinance.

The stores are among 187 that registered in 2007 to continue to operate when the City Council adopted a moratorium. (City officials have long said the number of registered dispensaries is 186 but recently concluded one was inadvertently left off the list.)

All other dispensaries in the city were required to stop selling marijuana June 7, when the ordinance became effective.

City officials estimate there are about 400 illegal dispensaries. Many, however, have sued the city to challenge the ordinance and some have remained open in defiance of the law.

Los Angeles officials are reviewing the documentation to ensure that the stores still have their original owners, have operated continuously and have moved no more than once. In their initial check, city officials determined that 79 met those requirements and planned to scrutinize the others. Control of seven dispensaries is in dispute, with competing groups claiming to operate them.

It’s unclear when the city clerk will complete its review. “We had a new hiccup,” said Holly L. Wolcott, the executive officer for the city clerk. City officials realized that they failed to collect information on the current management of the dispensaries, as required by the city’s ordinance, and now have to contact the dispensaries to collect that information.

– John Hoeffel

Could L.A.’s Pot-Shop Law Be Softened Up?

By Dennis Romero, Monday, Jun. 21 2010 @ 12:19PM

http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/marijuana/la-city-pot-law-change/

In what reads like a follow-up on LA Weekly’s own report about how many L.A. pot shops are remaining in business despite the city’s tough new law outlawing most dispensaries, the Wall Street Journal quoted Councilman Ed Reyes as saying a change in the ordinance is possible. And it sounds like by “change” he meant a softening up:

“This document is like a living organism that continues to evolve,” Reyes, an author of the ordinance, told the paper. “I never saw this as a cure-all.”

This is an eye opener, as the council took more than three years to draft a permanent ordinance dealing with medical marijuana dispensaries in the city. During that time the number of dispensaries in L.A. mushroomed from less than 200 to more than 500, leading late-night comics to quip that there were more pot shops in town than Starbucks outlets.

So, is Reyes saying that three-plus years wasn’t enough time to get it right? After studying ordinances in places such as West Hollywood and getting tons of feedback from fed-up neighbors and dispensary lobbyists, it’s still not right?

Now that the rubber meets the road and many dispensaries are resisting the city’s call to shut down, Reyes is indicating that a change might be in order. Maybe we exhaled too soon.

San Jose, Tuesday, June 22nd, from 12PM to 3PM, in front of the San Jose City Hall.

The protest rally will lead into the city council meeting where the City’s plan is to pass an “emergency ordinance” as the first step towards their goal of chasing all medical cannabis out of San Jose! In doing so, they are violating the civil rights of medical patients, invading their privacy, endangering the safety of patients, small business operators, the entire community, and even the city itself (through the legal consequences of their actions). The City Attorney’s office looks at this as a way to generate revenue for the city. The City plans to sue legally operating collectives, and they plan to force the collectives to pay for the cities legal fees. We need to let them know they cannot do this.

The Concerns:
* Only 10 Collectives, picked by a lotto system run by the Chief of Police
* $95,016 registration fee
* Industrial will not be allowed
* Sensitive uses: residential use, school, child day care center, church that includes a school or child day care use, community or recreation center, park, trail, library, substance abuse rehabilitation center or another Medical Marijuana Collective.
* “Commercial General Zoning District is the only zoning district for Collectives”
* “No collective shall possess or provide marijuana other than marijuana that was cultivated by the collective at the location”
* “No manufacture of concentrated cannabis is allowed”
* Hours of operation restrictions
* The Chief of Police and any other City Official are allowed to enter and inspect the collective and their records
* “Any existing medical marijuana collective, dispensary, operator, establishment, or provider that does not comply with the requirements of the draft ordinance must immediately cease operation”
* “Furthermore, no Medical Marijuana Collective, dispensary, operator, establishment, or provider that existed prior to the enactment of Part 8 of the draft urgency ordinance shall be deemed to be a legally established use and such medical marijuana collective, dispensary, operator, establishment, or provider shall not be entitled to claim legal nonconforming status”