TEHAMA COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS NIXES LIMIT ON POT

The Tehama County Board of Supervisors rejected an ordinance designed
to limit the amount of medical marijuana grown in a garden and where
gardens could be established by a 3-2 vote.

The ordinance, modified from its original proposal on June 23, would
have treated gardens with more than 30 plants or within 1,000 feet of
a school, church or bus stop as a civil nuisance, meaning the county
could tear up the plants and bill the owner in violation.

Over the course of two-and-a-half hours, the board heard nearly as
many people speak out in favor of the ordinance as against it, with
repeated concerns that marijuana growth, however legal, will attract
theft and violence.

Growers said the ordinance was being proposed during peak growing
season, and could create more pot gardens by forcing large gardens to
split up.

But it was the way the ordinance was developed that killed it.

Supervisor Bob Williams, instead of developing a temporary, or ad hoc,
committee to examine the issue and propose an ordinance to the board,
wrote his own ordinance, using a Mendocino County ordinance as a model.

"I don't care for ad hoc committees," Williams said after the
ordinance's defeat. "(The ordinance) is reasonable, it's enforceable,
it's legal."

Williams also voted against a motion to table the ordinance and to
place the formation of an ad hoc committee on a future Board of
Supervisors Agenda.

But the motion passed 3-2, with Supervisor Ron Warner siding with
Williams on both votes.

Supervisor Gregg Avilla, who voted against the ordinance, said he
would like to see a timetable set so that if the county forms an ad
hoc committee, it would not postpone an ordinance indefinitely.