Pubdate: Wed, 21 Oct 2009
Source: Daily Sound (Santa Barbara, CA)
Copyright: 2009 Daily Sound
Contact: http://www.thedailysound.com/contact/Letters-to-the-editor
Website: http://www.thedailysound.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4995
Author: Eric Lindberg
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

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. 
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D