HOW TO OPEN A POT CLUB ON THE PENINSULA

Want to open your own medical marijuana collective in unincorporated
San Mateo County?

In a few weeks, you'll have to fill out an application, pay a $100
fee and submit to inspections to make sure your club is in line with
all the terms of the county's new ordinance governing the collectives.

Buck those requirements and you may soon have the sheriff's office
knocking at your door.

The county's first-ever ordinance governing pot clubs goes into
effect on July 6, and county officials are trying to hash out how the
process to license the collectives will work.

Aspiring distributors will likely have to fill out an application
form, which has not been finalized but will include questions to make
sure the collective is in line with the ordinance's various restrictions.

Under the law, which supervisors approved on April 28, cooperatives
must be at least 1,000 feet away from a school, recreation center or
youth center; install an alarm system and window bars; refrain from
advertising or having any marijuana visible from the street; and must
not distribute edible cannabis products, among other provisions.

Once the application is turned in, the sheriff's office and the
county's building departments will inspect the collective's building
for compliance, said Deborah Penny Bennett, a chief deputy county counsel.

If the collective passes that step, the county's three-member
licensing board will have the final say on whether the Advertisement
club can operate.

The ordinance covers only the county's unincorporated area, though
there are already at least three clubs in the North Fair Oaks
neighborhood near Redwood City.

The founders of one club, the Universal Healthcare Cooperative, have
criticized the ordinance for banning edibles and have been in ongoing
talks with the county about the ordinance's terms.

Sheriff's office spokesman Tom Merson said officials have not been in
contact with the other two clubs ­ Blue Heaven and the California
Patients Cooperative.

The county plans to deliver applications to each of the cooperatives,
though they won't be expected to have their licenses approved by July
6. The next county licensing board meeting is in early August, Merson said.

"After the license application forms are available, they would have a
reasonable time to turn them in," Bennett said. "Certainly we would
expect people to be under way with the application process by July 6."

If clubs refuse to fill out an application or comply with the ordinance's terms

"They'd be shut down," Merson said.