POT CLUB AT ODDS WITH CITY'S PLAN

They're low-key places, but what goes on inside has city leaders worried.

They're called compassion clubs, dispensaries, smokehouses and other
names, and they all cater to medical marijuana users. Proposed city
regulations would severely limit where they can open and what
services they can provide, and that has medical marijuana advocates worried.

"It'll shut us down," said Maggie Perrin, who runs the Cereal City
Compassion Club on West Columbia Avenue. "I know there has to be
regulations, but to prohibit us from dispensing meds, from helping
patients, that's what we don't want."

The nonprofit Cereal City Compassion Club opened this spring in a
rented space below an adult novelty store.

On the outside there are few hints to the spot's purpose. But the
inside is decorated with banners with tie-dye colors and marijuana
leaves, and a glass counter displays a selection of marijuana and
marijuana-infused foods known as "medibles."

Perrin, 37, worked in the mortgage industry for nine years before
losing her job in November 2008, the same month Michigan voters
approved the state's medical marijuana law.

Perrin said she was already a medical marijuana advocate then, and in
April 2009 she got her caregiver license, which allows her to legally
grow marijuana for approved patients. In March, Perrin got her
patient license as well to help deal people with migraines and nausea.

No pot is grown at the club. It makes most of its money by taking
marijuana grown by a network of caregivers and distributing it to a
network of patients. Perrin said the club has about 300 members, who
all pay a $10 annual membership fee.

Battle Creek's proposed rules would require clubs like Perrin's to
obtain a city license and not allow marijuana to be grown,
distributed or used on site. The clubs could only offer support
services and would be limited to certain commercially zoned areas.

The city's planning commission is set to consider the zoning
recommendations at a special meeting Wednesday. It will then be up to
the city commission to approve the final restrictions on zoning and licensing.

Susan Bedsole, Battle Creek's director of licensing and compliance,
said the recommendation for now is to ban places for the distribution
or use of medical marijuana because that law doesn't specify that
such places are legal.

"What the state did was carve out an exception to that general rule
that (marijuana) is illegal," Bedsole said. "So if it doesn't say
that it's allowed then it's still unlawful, and that's our position."

Under the proposed rules, medical marijuana patients would only be
allowed to use the drug in their homes, although some city officials
have asked for some kind of exception.

Della Brown, a 41-year-old medical marijuana patient, said that if
she couldn't come to the Cereal City Commission Club, she'd have to
smoke at home near her 3-year-old grandson.

"It's nice having a place to go to be able to medicate before I go
home," said Brown, who suffers from chronic pain. "And it's my choice
not to smoke in my house."

The advocates also say that limiting patients to their designated
caregivers gives patients no backup medicine when a caregiver's crop
goes bad. That backup protection has been another advantage of the
compassion clubs, they said.

There are also privacy concerns over the city keeping a list with
names and addresses of licensed caregivers.

Matt Newburg, a Lansing attorney who has advised cities and
organizations on Michigan's medical marijuana law, said the state law
protects patient and caregiver information from public access, so
Battle Creek's ordinance could be problematic.

"This one requires somebody who is a patient or caregiver, who knows
that their information is protected from disclosure to walk into a
city or township and say, 'I'm here to apply for my license.' That
probably won't happen," Newburg said.

Cities can institute privacy protections, he said, but enforcing
local zoning and licensing rules can also be difficult since the
state law says patients and caregivers aren't subject to fines or penalties.

"They technically have a defense available to them that nullifies the
penalty of that ordinance," Newburg said.