Supes ask for pot dispensary moratorium

By COLBY FRAZIER — Dec. 9, 2009

Fearing a moratorium on marijuana dispensaries in the city of Santa Barbara could push the controversial establishments to unincorporated areas of the county, the Board of Supervisors yesterday directed legal counsel to draft a countywide moratorium.

Although the political will for a stiff moratorium clearly exists now, county lawyers said a bulletproof ordinance wouldn’t be ready until mid-January.

In the meantime, marijuana dispensaries, the exact number of which operating in the unincorporated county is unknown, could attempt to open.

“That’s the reason that we tried to get it moved up,” said 2nd District Supervisor Janet Wolf, noting that a moratorium will be presented to the Board no later than Jan. 19, but could arrive earlier. “We want to make sure that it’s air tight.”

While medical marijuana dispensaries have long been hotbeds of controversy in the city of Santa Barbara and other local jurisdictions, the county has been largely absent from the debate.

To date, county planners have processed requests for marijuana dispensaries just as they would any other business. And when dispensaries are located in a commercial/retail zone, the county might not even hear about the establishment.

Even when a dispensary must go through the county’s land-use permit process, aside from ensuring parking is adequate, planners have little way to restrict where and in what manner a dispensary can operate.

“The [planning] department’s practice to date has been to treat [dispensaries] as permitted retail space, similar to a pharmacy, which is allowed in commercial districts,” said Dianne Black, director of development services for the county’s department of Planning and Development. “The main area that we review is like any other [retail project], it’s mainly parking and not a whole lot more.”

Black said there’s been a recent flurry of interest from people interested in opening new dispensaries.

“Really, it’s an issue that seems to be affecting all of our urbanized areas of the unincorporated county,” she said.

Black said there’s significant room for more robust review of dispensaries. She said the Board could consider making permits for such facilities discretionary, meaning they would require more stringent review, and locations of the facilities could also be taken into consideration. The county could also mandate that dispensaries become collectives.

First District Supervisor Salud Carbajal, citing a seemingly imminent moratorium in the city of Santa Barbara, worried that dispensaries could proliferate in unincorporated areas. He said two are already up and running in Summerland, which is in his district.

Sheriff Bill Brown gave the Board a quick presentation on crime associated with marijuana dispensaries over the years. The crimes ranged from armed robbery and extortion to rape.

Brown touched on the crux of the issue surrounding the semi-legal use of the drug in California, saying it’s one of the few laws his office deals with on a regular basis that directly conflicts with federal law. Until state and federal laws coincide Brown urged the Board to ban the dispensaries all together.

“This whole field is really fraught with problems,” he said. “There’s really no recognized regulatory agency for these businesses or for the product that they sell. As a result of that, there’s no real legal way for these dispensaries to obtain their start-up products.

“Our recommendation is that the Board adopt as soon as possible a moratorium or an outright ban on marijuana dispensaries.”

Kathy Cleary, who spoke on behalf of the group Preservation of Los Olivos, said she and her neighbors discovered a dispensary was attempting to rent space in the small town, and the only way to fight it off was to convince the landlord to not grant a lease.

“The issue is not about the medicinal value of marijuana,” she said. “It took four months to get a farmers’ market [in Los Olivos]. Now medical marijuana [dispensaries] can move in and neighbors’ only recourse is talking with landlords. This is a significant issue.”

Sid Bailey, a co-owner of The Green Room Medical Collective in Summerland, said after the meeting that he supports an ordinance, but feels much of the rhetoric surrounding marijuana dispensaries is untrue and unnecessarily hysterical.

Bailey said The Green Room, which has been open for about five months, is in compliance with ordinances in the city of Santa Barbara that dictate, among several other things, the distance dispensaries must be from schools.

The Green Room also doesn’t sell to anyone under the age of 21, and it is a collective, meaning it buys marijuana from its members who have medicinal marijuana prescriptions, and sells to other members.

“When we opened here we made a point of following the rules and regulations that were in Santa Barbara,” Bailey said. “We also instituted a policy where we don’t sell to anyone under the age of 21. We’re kind of ahead of the curve here.”

Bailey said he’d be willing to meet with members of the Board of Supervisors to discuss his business model and how an ordinance could be helpful.

“I really believe these people on the Board of Supervisors are smart enough to get through the political posturing and get to some good, sound rules,” he said. “…All we really care about is that things are being done legally.”

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