POT HEAD-TO-HEAD

City Planning Commission Vs. Ordinance Committee

When it comes to medical marijuana dispensaries, the City of Santa
Barbara's Planning Commission is recommending a decidedly more
stringent course than the one currently embraced by the City Council's
Ordinance Committee. Rather than allowing up to seven
dispensaries--one for each of the seven geographically distinct
zones--as the Council's committee recommended, the commissioners
suggested that no more than four dispensaries--and perhaps as few as
two--be allowed.

In addition, the commissioners recommended creating more exclusionary
categories from which any dispensary would have to be at least 500
feet away. And lastly, the commissioners were emphatic that at least
one of the dispensaries should be located in the "medical corridor"
near Cottage Hospital.

The Council's Ordinance Committee--comprised of Councilmembers Dale
Francisco, Das Williams, and Grant House, and which recently approved
a draft medical marijuana dispensary ordinance--was equally emphatic
that dispensaries should be kept away from the medical corridor. The
Council recently enacted a moratorium on new dispensaries pending
additional review of the draft new ordinance.