Medical Pot Supporters Vocal During Meeting Staring down a room full of angry medical marijuana advocates and shrugging lawsuit threats, the Redding City Council voted unanimously Tuesday evening to ban cannabis collectives by Dec. 1. Redding is perhaps the first city in California to impose such a ban following a state appellate court decision in October striking down a medical marijuana permitting system in Long Beach. Sacramento has temporarily frozen new medical marijuana permits but not moved against existing collectives. The discussion was often heated between medical marijuana supporters saying collectives give patients safe access to their medicine and speakers saying storefront collectives contributed to higher drug use and crime. [continues 930 words]
Redding will loosen restrictions on medicinal cannabis co-ops -- but not as much as advocates would like. The City Council voted 4-1 Tuesday night to allow the city's 18 cannabis collectives to sell nonflowering clones, permit patients to specify how much medicinal marijuana they need and lift the ban on tobacco at the co-ops. The city also will allow collectives to grow plants at indoor nurseries, but only with a permit, in industrial or heavy commercial areas and with the property owner's permission. [continues 547 words]
Redding is poised to loosen a few of its medicinal cannabis regulations and tighten a couple of others. The City Council on Tuesday will consider more than a half-dozen changes to requirements it imposed on Redding's cannabis clubs starting in January. One of those clubs has shut down since the regulations went into effect in January, according to a council report. Eighteen clubs are still operating. Redding may relent on two of the laws drawing some of the harshest criticism from patients and their advocates -- a ban on "clone" plants for sale at cannabis clubs and a requirement that collective members present a doctor's recommendation specifying medicine amounts. [continues 410 words]
Redding's elected leaders are on record opposing Prop. 19, a measure on the November ballot legalizing marijuana. The City Council voted 3-1 Tuesday afternoon to adopt a resolution opposing Prop. 19 after failing to muster the votes needed to avoid taking a stand on the issue at all. Vice Mayor Missy McArthur cast the lone dissenting vote against opposing the measure. "We've been eradicating marijuana for years and I don't see the war on drugs working," McArthur said. [continues 456 words]
Redding will take a dry run Tuesday at whether the city will be a "dry" town should California voters legalize recreational marijuana use. Early indications are a council majority would not favor allowing recreational marijuana stores to crop up among the 19 heavily regulated medicinal cannabis clubs already operating within city limits. Police Chief Peter Hansen on Tuesday will urge the City Council to go on record opposing Prop. 19, the marijuana legalization initiative on the November ballot. Reached for comment Friday, most council members were leaning in favor of taking a stand against Prop. 19. [continues 488 words]
Redding will not join a small but growing group of California cities looking to shore up faltering budgets by taxing marijuana. A City Council majority this evening strongly rejected the idea of taxing Redding's 19 medicinal cannabis clubs. Council members seemed more willing to consider a tax on recreational marijuana, should voters on Nov. 2 approve Prop. 19. That ballot measure would allow possession of up to an ounce of cannabis for any purpose. But with Prop. 19's passage far from certain, council members said it's too soon to consider a tax -- or to discuss whether the city would even allow non-medical marijuana retailers to operate. [continues 274 words]
Gun shop manager Patrick Jones says he wants to sell as many firearms as he can. But Jones won't do business with known medical cannabis patients, such as Army Spc. Sean Merritt, an honorably discharged and disabled veteran. That refusal has drawn criticism from Merritt and other medical marijuana advocates, who have twice gone to Redding City Council chambers to denounce Jones, who happens to be mayor, for violating patients' rights. "There is nothing in state law that says I cannot own or possess a firearm," Merritt said at a recent council meeting. "And to be told as such is branding me as a severe mental patient or a felon. I am neither." [continues 725 words]
Redding inched closer Tuesday to enacting comprehensive regulations on medical marijuana cultivation and cannabis club locations when the Planning Commission voted to endorse new zoning. The commission's vote is merely a recommendation to the City Council, which must ultimately approve the zoning. The city would allow outdoor and indoor medical marijuana cultivation for qualified patients under the proposed zoning, but limit the size and location of the grows. Redding would restrict outdoor gardens to 100 square feet of canopy and allow them only in backyards and interior side yards 30 feet from the nearest neighbor. The city also would limit plant heights to 8 feet and require a 6-foot-tall fence around crops. [continues 512 words]
The Redding Planning Commission is poised to endorse zoning that would allow indoor and outdoor medical marijuana cultivation in the city - but with tight restrictions. The commission is expected to vote Tuesday on the proposed ordinance, which also would set strict limits on where new medicinal cannabis clubs may operate. The new zoning would complement cannabis club regulations the City Council adopted last month. The council must also give ultimate approval before the zoning restrictions on cultivation go into effect. Redding hosts 20 to 30 cannabis clubs, with some estimates as high as 40. No one knows for sure. [continues 605 words]
For the second time in a month, the Redding City Council on Tuesday narrowly approved sweeping regulations designed to winnow out profit-driven marijuana dealers from legitimate medicinal cannabis collectives. The council voted 3-2 to impose the regulations, which would go into effect by Jan. 1 and give the Redding Police Department the power to regulate collectives, including inspecting their records for compliance with state medical marijuana laws. The council voted after hearing from 19 speakers on both sides of the issue - medical marijuana patients and advocates along with business people and educators alarmed at the spread of cannabis collectives in town. Redding hosts an estimated 30 clubs. [continues 898 words]
Redding planning commissioners Tuesday endorsed limiting outdoor and indoor medical marijuana cultivation despite some sharp disagreements about how severe the restrictions should be. The commission did not vote Tuesday on a zoning ordinance setting marijuana cultivation standards and dictating where medical marijuana collectives may operate in the city. That decision probably won't be reached before Dec. 8. Commissioners did spend 3 1/2 hours listening to nearly a dozen speakers and debating among themselves how the city could best use zoning to strike a balance between safe access to marijuana for qualified patients while curbing abuses of California's Compassionate Use Act. [continues 730 words]
City Planners to Recommend Cultivation Limits and Zoning Restrictions The Redding Planning Commission will take a first stab at setting marijuana cultivation limits and zoning restrictions for medical marijuana collectives during a public hearing today. City planners will recommend the commission limit outdoor marijuana gardens to 100 square feet for the six mature plants allowed under Prop. 215. The gardens would have to sit behind a self-closing gate in a 6-foot-tall, "non-climbable" fence, under the proposed zoning regulations. [continues 497 words]
The Redding City Council deadlocked Monday evening on what was to be a routine vote on the medical marijuana regulations it approved last week. Councilwoman Missy McArthur changed her vote, siding with Patrick Jones against the new regulations, though for different reasons. "I voted yes on Tuesday but now I feel it's act in haste and regret in leisure," McArthur said, adding there are too many unresolved questions about the new regulations. Jones voted against the city regulations because federal law forbids marijuana possession, and he did not want to put Redding officials in conflict with that law. [continues 945 words]
Redding will impose a 45-day moratorium on new medical marijuana dispensaries and a host of regulations on current and future businesses to halt a "green rush" of for-profit collectives. The council voted 3-1 Tuesday evening to adopt the regulations after listening to more than an hour of public testimony and directing another hour of detailed questions to Police Chief Peter Hansen, who would enforce the new law, and City Attorney Rick Duvernay, who drafted the law. Vice Mayor Patrick Jones cast the lone vote against the regulations, arguing that federal law forbids marijuana possession and the new rules would put the city in conflict with those laws. Mayor Rick Bosetti was absent. [continues 461 words]
Planners' Decision May Bring More Recovery Projects In City The second time proved a charm for a south Redding drug and alcohol treatment program seeking city permission to continue filling its beds. As planning commissioners Tuesday OK'd the End Times Ministries program, they also opened the way for other mid-sized residential drug treatment centers to take root in Redding neighborhoods. End Times had been running a drug recovery center for men on Kenyon Drive some 17 months without a permit. In December, the commission had denied the faith-based organization permission to operate 25 beds, ruling that such a large program would crowd a neighborhood of single-family homes. [continues 554 words]
Local law enforcement authorities say a Calaveras County jury's recent decision to acquit a medical cannabis cultivator won't stop them from going after people they suspect are illegally growing the weed. "We certainly don't want to interfere with legitimate use," said Dennis Downum, Calaveras County sheriff. "But there are probably nine frauds for every medical user and we are having a hell of a time weeding them out." Prosecutors had accused William Roth Harrison, 50, of Vallecito, of possessing and growing cannabis for sale. [continues 388 words]
A Calaveras County jury on Friday acquitted an Angels Camp man of felony cannabis cultivation charges and charges of possession for sale. However, the jury found William Harrison, a local sculptor, guilty of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Barbara Yook, the Calaveras County deputy district attorney prosecuting the case, declined comment on the verdict. But medical marijuana advocates said they hope the verdict will cool local law enforcement's zeal to prosecute legal users. "I'm very happy the jury did the right thing," said defense attorney William Logan, adding that his client was growing for his own use rather than running a commercial drug operation. [continues 447 words]
Vote Establishes Task Force To Study Issue Calaveras County may be joining a handful of others in California protecting medical marijuana patients from a jarring jaunt to the jug. In a charged vote that split the Board of Supervisors 3-2, officials directed the county's Director of Health Services to propose a task force that could draw up guidelines under Proposition 215. California voters approved that law in 1996, which allows people suffering from cancer, AIDS, glaucoma, and other illnesses to use the federally forbidden drug without fear or arrest and prosecution. [continues 597 words]
