Pubdate: Wed, 03 Feb 2016
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2016 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Authors: Aaron C. Davis and Abigail Hauslohner

D.C. COUNCIL MOVES FORWARD ON STUDYING POT CLUBS

The District will begin studying whether to license private pot clubs 
under a measure that the D.C. Council approved Tuesday, potentially 
giving residents and visitors places to gather and smoke marijuana 
socially in the nation's capital as early as next year.

The council action amounted to a compromise between allies of D.C. 
Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), who had sought to continue a complete ban 
on pot clubs, and a growing contingent of council members who had 
threatened to override the mayor and approve a plan to license clubs. 
Such an effort, they contended, would more fully implement a 
voter-approved ballot measure in 2014 that legalized pot in D.C.

The District action further aligned it with a vanguard of mostly 
Western cities, including Denver, where lawmakers are wrestling with 
how to accommodate fast-shifting public sentiment in favor of greater 
social pot use. That question has become the next frontier in 
jurisdictions where voters have already legalized possession.

In a heavy day of legislating, the council also compromised with 
Bowser to extend her summer jobs program to include young people ages 
22 to 24 for two more years. But the council mostly rejected Bowser's 
proposed answer to last year's 54 percent spike in homicides.

The mayor had asked for authority to conduct warrantless searches of 
repeat violent offenders and take other tough-on-crime measures. But 
the council unanimously approved a plan by Judiciary Chairman Kenyan 
McDuffie (D-Ward 5) that proposes treating crime as a public health 
emergency, even including stipends to encourage some young men to 
stay out of trouble.

It was the council's unanimous vote to push forward on studying pot 
clubs - after unanimously banning such enterprises 11 months ago - 
that was most surprising. Several members said they were driven to 
back the effort to study pot clubs out of concerns that current D.C. 
law, which limits smoking to private homes, had begun to expose more 
children to secondhand marijuana smoke. Others said widespread 
disregard for a ban on public consumption in the year since 
legalization had led to unacceptably high levels of pot use on city 
sidewalks. Clubs, they said, could corral some smoking behind closed doors.

Council member Vincent B. Orange (D-At Large), the principal author 
of the compromise, said the unanimous council vote would "keep 
momentum alive" for the city to address discrimination in its current 
marijuana law, including the fact that poor residents in public 
housing can still face eviction for smoking at home.

The measure passed Tuesday was designed to tiptoe around a 
congressional ban on the District taking steps to further loosen 
penalties on pot consumption or spending city money to begin to tax 
and regulate pot sales.

It establishes a task force to recommend how the city would go about 
allowing business owners to apply for licenses to open pot clubs. It 
maintains the complete ban Bowser sought on pot clubs for 225 days 
while the task force develops those recommendations.

The council did not specify a of possible clubs, but in debate, 
members made clear they would ask task force members to recommend how 
to open a handful of clubs, perhaps one in each of the city's eight 
wards, or one per quadrant.

The vote thrust the thorny issue of continuing to shape the look and 
feel of marijuana legalization in the District back to Bowser, who 
will control a majority of the task force appointments.

Some council members had openly accused Bowser's administration of 
lax enforcement of a ban on public pot smoking in the year since 
legalization. Last month, the council also voted to let expire a 
package of emergency powers she had sought to close businesses for 
pot use. Lawmakers said the law had become a sham since it hadn't 
been used once.

Council member Brianne K. Nadeau (D-Ward 1), a co-author of the 
measure that passed Tuesday, said she was elated that the council 
reached a unanimous opinion to push toward clubs. Because the task 
force has four months to meet, she said, the compromise means the 
city "doesn't rush into anything."

Bowser spokesman Michael Czin, who had earlier said the mayor 
probably couldn't go along with clubs, said Bowser was "reviewing" 
the council action.

On crime, the council went further in rebuking Bowser. Lawmakers 
unanimously backed a broad crime-prevention bill that McDuffie 
labeled a "public health approach." It would provide jobtraining and 
counseling services, reform police training and oversight, and bring 
social workers and psychologists into emergency rooms and police 
units across the city.

The bill would also replicate a controversial California program that 
pays some residents to not commit crimes. A new office of 
neighborhood engagement would identify residents most at risk of 
committing or being victims of crimes and pay them stipends of as 
much as $9,000 to attend behavioral health programs and participate 
in life number planning, mentorship and other curriculums.

The mayor - who last month said McDuffie's legislation "failed to 
include any provisions to combat crime" - has not committed to paying 
for the initiatives included in the bill, which could cost $25.6 
million over four years.

The council rejected a lastditch effort by Bowser's office to insert 
a provision into the bill that would stiffen penalties for violence 
committed aboard Metro trains and buses.

Council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), a Bowser ally and the newly 
named chairman of the regional Metro board, urged the council to 
increase the penalties to show Washington-area residents that the 
government takes crime on Metro "seriously."

But a large majority rejected the idea at the urging of McDuffie and 
others, saying the move would do little to stop crime.

The mayor's office reluctantly struck a deal with Council Chairman 
Phil Mendelson (D) to expand the Mayor Marion S. Barry Summer Youth 
Employment Program to allow 1,000 22-to-24year-olds to participate 
each summer over the next two years.

Mendelson said limiting the program's expansion to two years for the 
time being "will keep pressure" on its administrators to ensure that 
it is meeting federal workforce development goals.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom