FONTANA STAFF: BAN POT DISPENSARIES, FOR NOW

FONTANA - Saying there's a local need, medical-marijuana advocates
recently approached Fontana's Department of Community Development
with questions about what city codes said concerning the operation of
dispensaries.

The answer from the staff was simple: nothing.

But the inquiry spurred department officials to ask that the City
Council consider an urgency ordinance that would temporarily prevent
dispensaries from opening in the city while the city's staff studies
whether they should be allowed.

"We want to come up with the best public policy we can," said Don
Williams, the city's community development director.

While California voters approved use of the drug for medicinal
purposes a decade ago, federal law still makes marijuana a substance
illegal to use or possess.

"We need to study what the implications are of supporting the state
law when clearly the federal law does not allow (that)," Williams
said. "There are some issues that need to be contemplated before we
allow them."

Helping Hands

Shawn Tizabi, of Helping Hands Collective Caregivers, approached the
city in early February with his sister and business partner, Shermin Tizabi.

Both said they want to work with the city to open a dispensary and
were surprised at talk of a moratorium.

"If you look within the Inland Empire, there is not one operating
legally," Shawn Tizabi said, though Fontana has a high number of
patients with marijuana prescriptions.

He and his sister want to run a dispensary by the book, he said,
adding, "We will not open our doors unless we get the support of the city."

Williams has asked the City Council to enact a 45-day moratorium on
dispensaries. The council must approve the ordinance with a
four-fifths vote for it to take effect immediately. Normally, an
ordinance takes effect 30 days after council approval.

"We'd like to have some time to discuss this dispassionately and then
make a recommendation to the council" whether the dispensaries should
be allowed, Williams said.

Police Chief Larry Clark said the situation needs serious study, and
his department won't make a recommendation on a permanent ordinance
until that study is done.

'A Rock and a Hard Place'

As law enforcement, "you're caught between a rock and a hard place"
regarding medical marijuana, Clark said. "You open (a dispensary),
and the feds come in and shut it down."

The discrepancy between state and federal law opens up other
problems. For example, Clark said, if an officer arrests someone for
possessing marijuana, the judge could find that person had the drug
legally under California law and order the officer to return the
marijuana to the defendant.

"If you look at the law, the judge is asking the officer to commit a
felony" under federal law, Clark said.

If Fontana bans dispensaries, it would force patients with marijuana
prescriptions to buy and use the drug illegally, Shawn Tizabi said.

"We're providing a safe facility for patients of medical marijuana," he said.

If the city OKs the dispensary, Shawn Tizabi said, each patient would
get marijuana only with a prescription and only under the supervision
of Shermin Tizabi, a registered nurse.

"At that point, we take their prescription and call the doctor. If we
can't contact their doctor, they don't get their prescription filled
- -- and that's each visit," he said.

The Tizabis said they helped run a cooperative in northern Santa
Barbara County until their partnership with other parties dissolved last fall.

Corona, Temecula, Norco and Lake Elsinore have banned dispensaries.

In early February, Desert Hot Springs enacted a temporary moratorium
similar to the one Fontana has proposed.