SACRAMENTO MULLS PLAN TO CAP MEDICAL POT DISPENSARIES AT 12

Sacramento officials Thursday night presented a plan to cap the
number of marijuana dispensaries in the city at a dozen and impose
strict requirements for their operations.

Faced with a packed room of pot shop owners and medical marijuana
advocates, City Manager Gus Vina asked for measured input on "an
emotional issue."

But representatives for marijuana patients and many of the city's 39
registered dispensaries threatened lawsuits. They charged the plan
would shutter tax-producing businesses and deny care to hundreds of
cannabis patients.

"This proposal would kill myself and other patients in similar
situations," complained Ryan Landers, a Sacramento senior adviser for
the Compassionate Coalition, a medical marijuana advocacy group.
"You're going to close clubs where hundreds of patients get
marijuana. This is a huge problem for the sick."

Landers, whose neck was bandaged on both sides from pain shots he
takes for shingles, told city officials he was one of the architects
of the 1996 Proposition 215 medical marijuana law.

He said the city plan amounted to Sacramento turning its back on
people who should be protected under Proposition 215.

But Vina said Sacramento is trying to accommodate patients and
communities. "There are a handful of cities that are trying to do
something. And we're one of them," Vina said.

Robert Shantz, a lawyer for a dispensary association, the Sacramento
Alliance of Collectives, said the city is offering "prohibition
masquerading as authorization."

The plan includes a lottery to determine which pot shops could stay
in business. It would require dispensaries to maintain security and
would ban the hiring of workers with felony convictions.

It also would require pot shops to label their products with a
disclaimer saying that the dispensary - not the city - assumes "risk
of injury or harm" from any marijuana sold.

Sonny Kumar, co-founder of the El Camino Wellness Center, complained
that the ordinance could force virtually every Sacramento pot shop to close.

He cited provisions that would restrict dispensaries to commercial
and industrial zones and ban clubs within 300 feet of neighborhoods
or 500 feet of churches, parks, schools, youth facilities or
substance abuse centers.

"It would result in only three locations where clubs or dispensaries
would be left in the total city," Kumar said.

Michelle Heppner, a special project manager working on the dispensary
issue, said Sacramento officials studied Oakland, a city with a
slightly larger population.

Oakland passed an ordinance allowing only four dispensaries but is
considering expanding to 14, Heppner said.

Oakland also passed the nation's first special tax - on top of the
state sales tax - for local medical marijuana sales. The Sacramento
proposal doesn't include a local taxing plan.

City Councilwoman Lauren Hammond, who chairs a committee that will
review the proposed ordinance, said she is concerned about
dispensaries clustering disproportionately in a few city areas,
including midtown.

She said Sacramento needs to get control of the issue to avoid a
scenario similar to Los Angeles, where officials grappled over an
ordinance as hundreds of dispensaries kept opening.

"We don't want to wind up like Los Angeles," she said. "We don't want
to rush to do this, but we want to be timely."

What's Next?

The Sacramento City Council's Law and Legislation Committee is
expected to work on the proposed dispensary ordinance in April and
May. If approved by the City Council, the ordinance could go into
effect in June or July.