SAN MATEO COUNTY ADOPTS FEE FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA COLLECTIVES

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 on 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 likely will 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 requirements, 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 club can operate.

The ordinance covers only the county's unincorporated area, though
there already are 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.