A judge's decision to strike down Kern County's medical marijuana dispensary law may generate more litigation than it settled. Now that voter-approved Measure G has been invalidated, county officials are likely to start trying to shut down the handful of collectives and cooperatives operating in unincorporated Kern. The Bakersfield City Council approved a ban on medical marijuana dispensaries in the city last summer. The group Concerned Citizens of Bakersfield sued the city July 29 -- days before the ordinance took effect -- alleging it violated the California Environmental Quality Act by not doing an environmental review before adopting the ordinance. [continues 991 words]
Kern County's battle with medical marijuana collectives and cooperatives took a wild turn Friday. Superior Court Judge Kenneth Twisselman invalidated Measure G -- the 2012 voter-approved ordinance that limits where storefront marijuana operations in unincorporated Kern County can locate. But county lawyers said that actually clears the way for Kern to eliminate all storefront marijuana shops in its jurisdiction, setting up what will likely be another round of conflict between the county and collectives over how medical marijuana patients obtain the drug. [continues 671 words]
Bakersfield City Council member Terry Maxwell on Wednesday called for City Attorney Ginny Gennaro to draft an ordinance banning medical marijuana shops in the city. Medical marijuana advocates and opponents made conflicting appeals to the Bakersfield City Council Wednesday night. The city, by council resolution, banned storefront cooperatives and collectives years ago, but there has been no concentrated enforcement. A recent California Supreme Court decision, upholding the right of cities and counties to ban the shops, has brought the issue back to the forefront. [continues 154 words]
The state supreme court ruling on medical marijuana dispensaries was not a defeat for the pot shop movement, a leading attorney said here Monday, but a setback. Phil Ganong, an attorney representing several medical marijuana collectives in Kern County, said the ruling does not invalidate his pending cases against a law passed by voters in 2012. In opposing the ordinance, the collectives argued that two state laws that permit the ownership and use of medical marijuana trumped any local restrictions or bans on storefront operations. [continues 440 words]
Kern County has changed the way it enforces a controversial ordinance limiting the cultivation of medical marijuana after a judge raised concerns about its tactics. The law, passed in August, was challenged in court by attorney Phil Ganong on behalf of several medical marijuana collectives and advocates. Kern County Superior Court Judge David Lampe refused Ganong's request to block implementation of the ordinance limiting grows to 12 plants on a single parcel while the law was being litigated. But Lampe threw in a twist by also saying he was concerned that the Kern County Sheriff's Department was prosecuting violations of the county rule as a criminal act and eradicating the plants immediately. [continues 572 words]
Federal law enforcement officials are the wild card in the regulation of medical marijuana in California. Sometimes they play the trump. Sometimes they're not even in the game. When storefront shops selling medical marijuana first appeared in Kern County, the Drug Enforcement Administration aggressively raided them and federal prosecutors filed charges against the operators. Then federal intervention slacked under a new administration and the burden of hefty law enforcement costs. Now, U.S. Attorneys' offices are warning California cities and counties that they could face criminal or civil action if they try to regulate marijuana under state law. [continues 1057 words]
Opponents of a Kern County ordinance that would outlaw storefront medical marijuana cooperatives and the sale of edible pot products have blocked the law from taking effect. The Kern County Elections Division on Wednesday verified that Kern Citizens for Patients' Rights had collected 17,350 valid signatures from registered Kern County voters. That's the number required to block the bans. Elections workers reached the 17,350 number Wednesday and stopped counting. About 2,662 of the original 26,326 signatures submitted remained uncounted, a cushion of support Kern Citizens didn't need. [continues 672 words]
Kern County Superior Court Judge David Lampe played his cards close to the vest Friday as lawyers for medical marijuana collectives and the county of Kern tried to sway him to their side of the debate over the county's 12-plant limit on medical pot cultivation. He didn't issue a tentative ruling or speak about which way he planned to rule. Lampe heard arguments from Chief Deputy County Counsel Mark Nations and medical marijuana collective attorney Phil Ganong and told them his ruling on a preliminary injunction would be issued later. [continues 535 words]
Opponents of a Kern County ban on storefront medical marijuana collectives temporarily blocked the law from taking effect Friday morning. Activists with the Kern Citizens For Patient Rights turned in 26,335 signatures to Kathleen Krause, the clerk of the Board of Supervisors, at about 4 p.m. Thursday -- an hour before they were due. They needed to turn in at least 17,350 signatures to stop the ordinance. By 5:15 p.m., elections workers had confirmed the number of signatures turned in and were preparing for the long task of verifying their validity -- work expected to stretch into next week. [continues 537 words]
A Kern County Superior Court judge has refused to temporarily block the Kern County ordinance that makes it illegal to grow more than 12 marijuana plants on a piece of property. That ordinance has sparked two weeks of frenzied raids by Kern County Sheriff's deputies, who have eradicated marijuana grows of between a few hundred and thousands of plants under the authority created by Kern County Supervisors on Aug. 9. Wednesday's ruling, which went against medical marijuana advocates, will allow those raids to continue until at least Sept. 16 when the full case against the 12-plant rule is scheduled to go to a hearing before Superior Court Judge David Lampe. [continues 412 words]
Kern County supervisors took the first step toward banning the sale of medical marijuana though organized, nonprofit collectives and cooperatives in county areas Tuesday over the objections of a crowd that filled their chambers and marched down Truxtun Avenue. The Board of Supervisors could have slammed the plan into place immediately. But it chose to wait one week and take more input from staff about the impact on patients. Supervisors voted unanimously to approve a first reading of an ordinance that would create the ban on collectives, limit the number of plants that could be grown outside on a piece of property to 99 and outlaw the sale of marijuana-laced food products. [continues 459 words]
Kern County supervisors on Tuesday put a 45-day moratorium on the establishment of new medical marijuana collectives or cooperatives in the unincorporated areas of Kern County. They also made it clear they could extend the ban for up to two years. While the moratorium is in place, new medical marijuana businesses will not be allowed to open. Existing collectives or cooperatives will not be allowed to change locations. If they do, they will not be allowed to reopen. Reports from the Kern County Counsel's office cited the need to limit the potential negative impacts of collectives and cooperatives on surrounding neighborhoods as justification for the limits. [continues 590 words]
As Kern County prepares to discuss how to handle the burgeoning number of medical marijuana collectives and cooperatives here, the city of Bakersfield is just learning that it, too, may have an issue with the businesses. Bakersfield City Council members passed a resolution in 2004 declaring that medical marijuana dispensaries were not allowed to open inside the city's boundaries. But cooperatives and collectives have opened despite the rule. At least four collectives are tucked into commercial areas around the city -- on Haley Street just north of Highway 178, on Baker Street in the heart of Old Town Kern, in a commercial strip along Easton Drive and on 27th Street near San Joaquin Hospital. [continues 492 words]
Supervisors will consider Tuesday freezing the number of new medical marijuana cooperatives in Kern County for at least 45 days while they consider whether to regulate the 22 that have exploded onto the scene in the past year. In March 2009, supervisors repealed an ordinance that had limited the number of medical marijuana dispensaries allowed in Kern County to six. None of them liked the decision. All worried it would bring more medical marijuana businesses, organized as collectives, to Kern County. [continues 1202 words]
Kern County supervisors repealed an ordinance Tuesday that limited and controlled the number of medical marijuana dispensaries that could open here in Kern County. The split vote, with Supervisor Mike Maggard objecting, followed a long question session with county attorney John Irby, who has tracked the legal fate of California's controversial marijuana law. Irby said the dispensaries the board is familiar with -- six were allowed under county ordinance -- won't come back. He said the dispensaries are now clearly illegal under guidelines set by California Attorney General Jerry Brown. [continues 170 words]
Extension Could Prevent New Shops From Opening Licenses for Kern County's six medical marijuana dispensaries were extended one year by Kern County supervisors Tuesday. Supervisors weren't trying to help the medical marijuana movement. They made the move, proposed by Supervisor Michael Rubio, with the full knowledge that the people who hold those licenses probably won't use them. The dispensaries closed after federal drug agents raided Nature's Medicinal Cooperative in Oildale and arrested its owners in July. Medical marijuana is illegal under federal law. [continues 382 words]
Kern County Supervisors Will, on Tuesday, Struggle Once Again With the Tough, Many-Tentacled Problem of Medical Marijuana. County attorney John Irby has been searching the law for a way to balance the federal government's criminal stance toward the substance and the state's laws, which treat it as a medicine. He has found some information and a handful of options to offer supervisors. But Irby said he can offer them no perfect solutions. "There's not a silver bullet solution," he said. [continues 351 words]
Kern County District Attorney Ed Jagels offered two suggestions to Kern County supervisors on the medical marijuana controversy Tuesday morning. Repeal the county's marijuana dispensary ordinance, he suggested. Or as a preferred alternative, he said, ban dispensaries, cooperatives and collectives. State law allows marijuana collectives and cooperatives under strict conditions. But Jagels argued it is prohibitively difficult to operate a marijuana cooperative or collective that is actually legal under state law. "It's almost impossible to operate one of these things that is legal," he said. [continues 244 words]
Mired in Differences Amid Federal, State, Local Laws, Little Choice Was Available Kern County supervisors on Tuesday struggled to find a clear path for themselves out of the legal morass that is medical marijuana in California. The problem is there is no path. So all five supervisors voted to stay put -- leaving county ordinances exactly as they are. And that means a de-facto ban on medical marijuana dispensaries remains in place. Federal law says growing, selling and using marijuana is illegal. [continues 462 words]
Medicinal marijuana problems should dominate the Tuesday morning session of the Kern County Board of Supervisors meeting. Medical pot advocates are calling for patients and activists to swarm to the meeting and share their concerns about the closure of marijuana dispensaries in Kern County. The dispensaries closed after federal raids on an Oildale dispensary. Now supervisors may have to change county ordinances to adapt to a conflict between state law and federal law on the issue of marijuana. Trashy compost Supervisors also will get a report on land use violations at the troubled Community Recycling Inc. composting facility near Lamont. [continues 327 words]
