COUNTY NIXES MEDICAL POT CLUB

Probably Dooms Future Attempts in Sonoma Valley

The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors voted 3-0 Tuesday afternoon to
deny a pot club permit in the old Nicholas Turkey building just
across the Ig Vella Bridge at 19445 Riverside Drive.

Following nearly three hours of discussion and public testimony, the
Supervisors, sitting with a bare, three-person quorum, voted to deny
the application by Dona Frank of Creekside Medical Organics. Frank
had been hoping to open the dispensary in leased office space toward
the back of the concrete block building that sits adjacent to Sonoma
Creek just across from Maxwell Farms Regional Park. The permit
application had won the support of the Sonoma Valley Citizen's
Advisory Commission in a nonbinding 6-1 vote.

But 1st District Supervisor Valerie Brown had already voiced
opposition to the application, saying her biggest concern with the
site was the issue of public safety. Unlike a medical marijuana
dispensary also run by Frank on a highly visible lot just outside
Santa Rosa city limits, the Riverside Drive location is out of sight
from the street and would have been hard for sheriff's deputies to
patrol, Brown said.

"That is an incredibly isolated spot," Brown added after the hearing.
"From my perspective, this was really about safety."

Sonoma County's medical cannabis dispensary ordinance, passed by the
Board of Supervisors in March, establishes several location criteria
for a permitted facility. Those criteria include the requirements
that dispensaries be more than 1,000 feet from a school or park and
more than 100 feet from a residential district. The Riverside site
was 53 feet from the nearest residence and well under 1,000 feet from
Maxwell Farms Regional Park.

The residence proximity condition could have been waived at the
discretion of the Supervisors because there were physical barriers
between the Nicholson building and nearby homes, but according to
Brown that wasn't the issue.

"I had the opportunity to inspect the site," she said. "I walked the
landscape. It's simply not safe enough. Seclusion is the problem."

Brown pointed out that the creekbed behind the facility is the same
general terrain traveled by the assailant who shot and killed Luis
Miranda in Maxwell Farms Regional Park on Oct. 22.

During the hearing, supervisors praised Frank's management of her
Santa Rosa facility, but dispensary spokesperson Lisa Gygax, a
Forestville attorney, said the praise didn't mean much.

"We weren't looking for accolades. We were following the rules. We're
very disappointed in the vote," she said. Gygax charged the County's
Permit and Resource Management Department (PRMD), which recommended
against granting the permit, of "institutionalized discrimination.
They hid behind the 100-foot parcel rule and ignored the physical
barriers in place." Gygax also said that PRMD "lost 500 letters from
Sonoma residents in support of the site."

Asked if her client would look for another Sonoma Valley dispensary
site, Gygax said, "Unless the City of Sonoma passes an ordinance, I
don't see it happening any time soon."

Brown herself acknowledged that it may be hard to find a Valley
location that conforms to the requirements of the county ordinance.
"I imagine it's going to be hard," she said.