Officials develop new medical marijuana restrictions
It took four lengthy hearings and plenty of public input, but members of Santa Barbara’s city ordinance committee finally have a set of recommendations on how to address growing concerns about the proliferation of medical marijuana dispensaries.
After another round of public comment yesterday, city leaders buckled down and hammered out a handful of recommendations ranging from a citywide cap on the number of dispensaries to enhanced security requirements.
“I think we’re making progress,” said Councilmember Das Williams, who chairs the committee. “We’re in the unique situation of having to deal with state and federal law that is in flux. It seems where the state and federal government is heading is to permit marijuana.”
As a result, he said the city is being forced to come up with a way to properly regulate the drug.
And ever since a particularly troublesome dispensary prompted complaints several years ago, city leaders have been struggling with the best way to ensure legitimate patients have access to medicinal marijuana while protecting neighborhoods from any negative impacts.
Despite placing a set of regulations on the books last year, city officials continued to receive waves of complaints about new dispensaries popping up in their neighborhoods. At the prompting of Mayor Marty Blum and Councilmember Dale Francisco, the ordinance committee took another look at the regulations.
Roughly nine hours of discussion later, the committee has put together 10 recommendations that officials are hopeful will address many of the community concerns expressed by dozens, if not hundreds, of residents who spoke during the course of the revision process.
“We’re tightening it up and going to see if it works,” Williams said. “If that’s not restrictive enough to essentially get rid of the bad actors in the marketplace, then we’ll look at tightening it up again.”
Chief among the new restrictions is a citywide cap of seven dispensaries with an additional limit of only one pot shop in each of seven designated areas. Those areas are upper State Street, De la Vina Street, Mission Street, Milpas Street, the Mesa, east downtown and west downtown.
Committee members also agreed to recommended cutting down the amortization period given to existing dispensaries that don’t comply with the regulations for one reason or another. Non-conforming shops will have to meet the new laws within six months or close, instead of the 17 months they previously had to comply.
“The real problem in my mind is you have a lot of dispensaries out there that existed before the regulations,” Williams said. “They’re not regulated in the way that we know is necessary in order to prevent problems. We needed to reduce the amount of time they were given to come into conformance.”
Other recommended regulations include a prohibition on medical marijuana dispensaries in current mixed-use buildings with condos, a 1,000-foot prohibition around the Casa Esperanza homeless shelter, and the creation of an annual permit review process.
Ordinance committee members also agreed to give more discretion to the city’s staff hearing officer in considering applications for a medical marijuana dispensary permit.
“As it’s structure now, it’s very difficult to turn one of these applications down,” Francisco said.
As a result, the committee recommended changing the word “would” to “is likely to” when considering whether the dispensary would pose a nuisance to the neighborhood.
After hearing from community members concerned about marijuana being resold on the streets, members of the committee agreed to recommend establishing a list of people convicted of reselling medical marijuana. Any dispensary known to sell to those people would be subject to having its permit revoked.
Even as the discussion of specific details in the ordinance took place, Francisco said the city still needs to grapple with a much larger picture — how to deal with changing state and federal law relating to medical marijuana.
“The dispensary model itself, in my opinion, is in conflict with California state law,” he said, explaining that the Compassionate Use Act only provides for collectives or cooperatives that provide marijuana for legitimate patients.
He recommended bringing up the larger issue of figuring out which model to support — a for-profit storefront model or a nonprofit collective model — with the full council.
“Until that question is resolved, I have real doubts about the efficacy of what we’re doing here,” Francisco said.
Nonetheless, he largely supported the proposed changes, which will return to the ordinance committee in draft form for a final review before heading to the Planning Commission and on to the full City Council for possible approval.
Comment on this article
protect the homeless but not the students?? : 10/21/2009
so, 1000 ft from the homeless center, but not from the high school? gee, thanks for caring for the most vulnerable among us
cannibisness wins again
students : 10/21/2009
There are already laws on the books regarding underage drinking, smoking, and being under the influence. Good parenting starts at the home when they are born, not when they enroll in school (it's too late by then). It ultimately falls on every parent to be aware of what their kids are getting into, not the schools, police, or courts.
Parent
Think it through, learn the facts... : 10/21/2009
Marijuana is like guns. Make them illiigal, and the CRIMINALS control it. The government has no right to tell me if I can drink (albeit beyond a certain age limit) or smoke cigarretes, why? because I am a free adult. Marijuana is not only no different than alchohol and tobacco, but has been proven to cause less damage! The ONLY REASON, therefore, for any gov't restrictions on marijuana, therefore, is due to an outdated, archaic belief system that was molded by special interest propoganda in a different era for the purpouse of exterminating the hemp industry, (which is more efficent, cost effective, useful, and enviornmentally friendly than paper) There is a plethora of proof for all these claims. No one has died from marijuana, yet HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS die from alchohol and tobacco. Think it through, people. This issue is not being driven by a bunch of no-good stoners, this is relevant for our society, and many educated, well informed people, many of which don't even smoke marijuana, understand the benefits of legalization, including the billions of dollars in revenue that would greatly benefit our utterly broke state economy.
Thadeus
Get rid of dispensaries : 10/21/2009
They're illegal under state law - no sale over the counter was ever authorized. Everyone thought medical marijuana was near-legalization, well guess what. It isn't. It's medical marijuana only. All these dispensaries cropping up are just dealers making tons of money at this, and pretending it's about patients and medicine. BS. 80 years after alcohol is legalized, and we have drunks falling down on the street, people going to AA, and laws passed so they'll stop getting drunk and plowing cars into innocent people. So the argument to make it TWO mind-altering substances now legal is what again?
Concerned Parent
Are you kidding me? : 10/21/2009
Your arguments, "concerned parent" yet further the point for legalization. Why? well lets break down exactly what you stated. 1. It isnt legal, and all the dispenseries are dealers making tons of money through the fake guise of 'medicine' Yes, this furthers the very point that regulation produces loopholes, and that criminals control the black market for anything that is illigal yet there is a demand for. The demand will always be there, authorities should utilized this inherent market demand for state profits. Plus, regulation would allow a 21 age limit, and that, along with a regulated, legal market, will actually decrease the rampant availability to our children. 2. Alchohol has been legal for 80 years, and now there are drunks and AA meetings etc... Actually, the proof shows that drunkards are not a result of legalization, as the prohibition in the early part of this century was a perfect case study in showing that a black market would emerge and people in essence would drink even MORE, in an unregulated fashion. This is America, and every individual has the right to decide how to live their own lives. Legalization will not create any more stoners than already exist at present, but it WILL regulate who buys it and it WILL produce revenue. Arguing that "TWO mind altering substances" being legal is bad comes with the automatic assumption that you would re-criminalize alchohol, and that was already attempted, with dire costs. We might as well make food illigal because of obesity, or water illigal because of water poisening...Its not the subsatance itself (especially when pertaining to a substance as relatively harmless as marijuana) its the personal choice of the individual not to abuse it, just like ANYTHNG else.
Thadeus
Thadeus, you're still missing the point : 10/25/2009
You are talking as though marijuana is legal, or should be. Please, by all means, go fight that fight. There's a petition somewhere you can sign on this. But the issue right now is that IT IS NOT LEGAL and the medical marijuana dispensaries are operating in a no-man's land where they're supposed to be dispensing only to the chronically ill. That's not their mainline business, recreational use is. This is an abuse of the law, and until the law changes, I am sticking to my stance on this.
Concerned Parent
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