|
Main Menu
|
|
Written by Peter Gabriel Keyes
|
|
Monday, 13 July 2009 06:03 |
|
After years of an unofficial "don't ask, don't tell" policy on medical marijuana dispensaries, the City of Sacramento is finally ready to take action on the matter. On Tuesday, July 14, 2009, the Sacramento City Council will decide whether or not to place a moratorium on the opening of new medical marijuana dispensaries in the city. A large document has been drafted that, if approved, would temporarily stop new dispensaries from opening. The council would then presumably write and vote on an ordinance that permits and regulates medicinal cannabis dispensaries.
The 111 page moratorium contains some provisions not seen in similar legislation in other cities. The proposed ordinance states, "This interim emergency ordinance will prohibit new medical marijuana dispensaries from opening and prohibit existing dispensaries from being modified or expanded while staff conducts research and brings forward a recommendation on how to manage the medical marijuana industry in the future. In addition, this emergency ordinance calls for all existing operators to register with the City within 30 days of enactment. A medical marijuana dispensary shall be deemed to be an 'established operation' if the owner or operator of the dispensary timely submits an application and the City Manager or his/her designee finds that, based on credible evidence, the medical marijuana dispensary has been providing marijuana to qualified patients as their primary caregiver at their current location since at least June 16, 2009..."
The full nine-member City Council has not publicly discussed the matter yet. But on June 16, 2009, the city's Law & Legislation Committee, comprised of four City Council Members, heard the issue. Statements from these local elected officials may give some clues as to how the city is likely to proceed regarding medicinal cannabis dispensaries.
Longtime Council Member, cancer survivor and former lawman Robbie Waters demonstrated that he is substantially confused about the matter. Often described as the most conservative member of the Council, Waters said, "I've raised this issue many times in the 15 years I've been here - successfully closed a couple of them. My concern has always been not the people that need the medical marijuana, but the people that don't. I'm not a doctor, you see a lot of young 25 year old people coming in out of these places all the time. So I would guess they do not qualify."
Without elaborating on why he thought that an age of 25 would disqualify a sick person from California's Medical Marijuana Program, Waters continued, "We had a good relationship with the DEA. Now, the president's orders are they're not to get involved with local things here anymore. So we're back to our zoning code, and it's only a misdemeanor offense. Now I'd like to see this come before the whole council. I'd like to see as much report back as we can get. Why aren't we citing these places under the zoning code? We've lost the federal help that was very valuable to us."
Regarding the D.E.A. shuttered dispensary Capitol Alternatives, which was located on 16th street in between "T" and "U" streets, Waters boasted, "16th and W (sic) was the last one that I was involved in. It was something else! People you see on the surveillance camera film - youngsters going in there, 18, 19 - and right back out, putting marijuana in their pockets. And when they did the feds moved in. They just literally had drawers stuffed with money that had no accountability at all. You open the drawer and the money just jumped out. Just shoved money in drawers and shoeboxes. Things like that. I'd like to come back and see if we can't tighten this thing up. With the laws we have now we can only do it on the misdemeanor offenses. If we reduce the numbers down so that we can have centrally located maybe four or five places - north, south, east, west, etc., and one downtown - that are there for the medical marijuana that is needed, but not for this type of illegal activity that goes on. I think it's Tracy, has a city ordinance that allows them to run a business selling medical marijuana. They've had this business license for several years - two owners now are serving 24 years each in prison. When the state took 'em off for not paying their franchise tax fees on two million dollars, that's what they're doing time for. You don't do two million dollars on medical marijuana in one year."
Council Member Steve Cohn appeared generally sympathetic to the plight of dispensaries. Cohn commented, "I think we need to move forward quickly, because there's not really a mechanism that would allow someone to operate lawfully under city ordinance. We have to affirmatively act for them to have a legal permit. In essence, anyone out there operating is operating illegally under city ordinance. We live in California, Prop. 215 applies here. The federal government, in the past, was saying, 'That's too bad, we're gonna enforce federal law.' In essence, we couldn't really say anything was legal. But now the federal government is saying, 'If that's how your state wants to do it, we're not going to interfere.' So I think given that Sacramento needs to affirmatively be clear where it's legal and where it isn't legal to do so, otherwise we're gonna end up with either a lot of people in a shadow environment, not clear what's going on, or we could have what's just as bad in my mind: none of them operating legally, and no one can get access. The voters made it very clear in the city. I think the vote was 60% in favor of Prop 215. Clearly the voters in the state - and in this city in particular - think it's appropriate for there to be a medical marijuana dispensary, but we're in this shadow world where there's no way to do that legally yet in the city. We need to fix that."
Simultaneously compassionate and shrewd, Council Member Sandy Sheedy said, "The City of Sacramento voted for Prop. 215, 59.9 to 40.1[%]. That says something here. It says that people who are in need of medical marijuana really deserve to have it. I would like to look at legalizing this so that we can get the right businesses in the right places for the people who need them. I'm looking at having a limited number in the city. I don't think everyone that's in business right now is going to be there at the end of this. I'd like to have restrictions on the patients and proximities to other areas, like not near schools. I want hours of operation, requirements with regard to security, lighting and good neighbor policy. Everything that we've had in previous ordinances should be in this one, so that it's on the books as being regularly inspected by code enforcement, and the health and the police department. We need a permit fee. We need to treat this as a business, and we have limited numbers in the card rooms, and we have the taxicab ordinance - a limited number there."
Frowning,Vice Mayor Lauren Hammond expressed her concerns. "I'm not opposed to marijuana medical dispensaries. But given the disproportionate number of social services already in council district 5, I'm really not too thrilled about seeing one open there. I'm thinking about the guidelines for creating an ordinance. May I suggest that we do something a little differently than we did for the taxicabs. For the taxicabs, because we had so many individual cabbies we said you had to have a fleet of 25 vehicles. But we never gave a number as to how many fleets we are going to approve. So my understanding is that we have more taxis than we had before we created the ordinance. No more people, just more taxis. So if we're gonna look at an ordinance that's going to say it has to be 1,000 feet from a school, or 1,000 feet from a church or not within 500 feet of another one or only one per district, there needs to be a top number."
Getting further sidetracked on the issue of taxicabs, Council Member Waters clarified, "Since we put the taxi ordinance in place there's been 140 more on board. The population hasn't increased, and there's no need for that many cabs, so most of them are competing and not making any money. So I had a meeting this morning on that with staff and we're looking at doing something at least until this economy turns around."
Returning to the issue of medical marijuana dispensaries, Waters lamented, "We're gettin' complaints, we all are, from all over - people in our districts. I don't know how long this is gonna take to get what we wanna do done. That's the problem. So next week - five more open - who knows? We have no way of knowing, unless we get complaints, who's out there. I would like to see some enforcement measures in there to take out the bad guys."
Whatever the council decides, they have clearly waited far too long if they had hoped to prohibit dispensaries. It would take a gargantuan effort to try to shutter 30+ storefronts, and in this economy it is extremely unlikely that the city is up for that kind of a battle. At the end of this process, some local dispensaries are likely to earn coveted permitted status.
And, if some members of the Law & Legislation Committee have their way, some local dispensaries will be forced to close.
 |
|
Last Updated on Monday, 13 July 2009 17:37 |
|
Subscribe to this comment's feed