SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY EXTENDS MORATORIUM ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARIES

A moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries in San Bernardino
County was extended by almost a year Tuesday to give county planners
time to develop zoning and licensing rules.

The Board of Supervisors, which approved a 45-day moratorium that
expires Friday, extended the ban on retail outlets that sell medical
marijuana to patients until June 19, 2010.

Julie Rynerson Rock, the county's land use services director, said
more time is needed to complete the county's review of other
jurisdictions and introduce an ordinance regulating such facilities.

Under state law, the county is allowed to enact a moratorium for 45
days but must hold a public hearing within that period.

It can then extend the moratorium so that it is in effect for a year,
including the initial period.

Rynerson Rock said she did not expect that it would take that long to
put together a proposal, which she said she hoped to do before the end
of the year.

The moratorium will not affect the county's plan to begin issuing
patient identification cards on Aug. 14. The board agreed to begin
doing so in June after its three-year legal challenge to the state
medical marijuana law was unsuccessful.

With the recent change in policy, the Sheriff's Department has begun
taking a more careful approach to marijuana possession arrests so that
medical patients are not arrested, sheriff's Lt. Rick Ells said.