REDDING PLANNERS SET TO ENACT STRICT NEW MEDICAL POT
RULES

The Redding Planning Commission is poised to endorse zoning that
would allow indoor and outdoor medical marijuana cultivation in the
city - but with tight restrictions.

The commission is expected to vote Tuesday on the proposed ordinance,
which also would set strict limits on where new medicinal cannabis
clubs may operate.

The new zoning would complement cannabis club regulations the City
Council adopted last month. The council must also give ultimate
approval before the zoning restrictions on cultivation go into effect.

Redding hosts 20 to 30 cannabis clubs, with some estimates as high as
40. No one knows for sure.

Collectives are clustered along the South Market Street spine through
downtown and along Churn Creek Road. Collectives have also set up
shop on Hartnell Avenue, Bechelli Lane, Cypress Avenue and Lake
Boulevard, according to a map supplied to the commission.

The proposed zoning would not allow the clubs along Lake Boulevard,
Hartnell and the northern part of downtown to operate. Another
collective could not take the place of a club closing in those areas.

The zoning would allow new clubs in heavy commercial and general
commercial areas along Highway 44 near Airport Road, along Twin View
Boulevard and the more southern stretches of South Market Street, all
farther from the center of town.

The city would permit up to 100 square feet of space dedicated to
outdoor and indoor medical marijuana cultivation for each qualified
patient, under the proposed ordinance.

Officials would limit each address or parcel to three patients, for a
maximum 300 square feet of cultivated space indoors and outdoors
combined. The marijuana plant canopy would define that space.

Patients growing marijuana outdoors would see their gardens limited
to rear or side yards, under the ordinance.

Around those gardens, the city would require 15-foot setbacks for
side yards facing the street and 10-foot setbacks for interior side
or rear yards. Marijuana gardens would not be allowed any closer than
30 feet from the nearest neighboring home.

Patients could not grow marijuana plants taller than 8 feet, under
the zoning. The city would require non-climbable fences at least 6
feet tall around any marijuana garden.

Indoor grows would face similar spatial restrictions to 100 square
feet or 10 percent of a home's total floor area - whichever is
larger. Garages and attics don't count as floor area, under the
proposed zoning.

The city would require contractor certification for any electrical
loads greater than 1,200 watts used for growing medical marijuana
indoors.

Officials would forbid using butane, carbon dioxide or any other gas
to power indoor cultivation.

Redding would also require proper ventilation for an indoor grow, and
stipulate that the qualified patient live in the home where his or
her medicine is cultivated.

Finally, city officials would require growers cultivating for a
medicinal cannabis club to file an affidavit with the director of the
city's Development Services Department, stating the name of the
collective being supplied and the quantity each calendar year.

Patients living on small or irregular lots may seek exceptions from
the setback requirements under the zoning.

And patients with physician recommendations for more medical
marijuana than allowed for cultivation under the zoning may also seek
exceptions.

The cannabis club regulations recently approved by the council are
perhaps the most comprehensive and far-reaching yet approved in the
state.

Several patients and patient advocates have already threatened
litigation, saying Redding's medical marijuana regulations are
unconstitutionally restrictive.

Collectives must allow the police chief access to their records so
authorities can determine whether the business serves qualified
medical marijuana patients under the new regulations, which go into
effect in January.

The city also will require doctors to specify amounts in their
medical marijuana recommendations to collective members, limit
cannabis sales to dried buds and ask members to verify that they
don't belong to more than one collective in Shasta County.

These regulations are designed to weed out profit-driven dope dealers
from legitimate medical marijuana collectives, which are supposed to
be nonprofit, Redding officials have said.

If you're going

What: Redding Planning Commission meeting.

When: 4 p.m. Tuesday.

Where: Council Chambers, 777 Cypress Ave.

Agenda includes: Medical marijuana cultivation.