STOCKTON SETTLES CASE AGAINST POT COLLECTIVE

STOCKTON - The city will end its year-old court case against a
medical marijuana collective under a legal settlement the City
Council approved late Tuesday.

In exchange, Pathways Family Health Cooperative Counseling Inc. will
pay the city $25,000 and will be barred from ever again opening a
dispensary in Stockton.

Lynn Smith, the collective's director, declined to comment.

Pathways opened on East Acacia Street in November 2009, reviving a
long-dormant city discussion over dispensary regulations, an issue
that had been debated years before but abandoned.

Four months later, the city sought to close the outlet, claiming it
opened under false pretenses and arguing the dispensary should not be
open before the city had figured out how to regulate such businesses.

A San Joaquin County Superior Court judge in June ordered the
dispensary to suspend its operations and pay $40,000 in fines.
Pathways later appealed.

The city has since adopted dispensary regulations and is reviewing
applications for three permits. In the meantime, Smith has opened a
new dispensary under a different collective in a city pocket of
unincorporated San Joaquin County.

County code enforcers issued the collective a notice to comply for
operating without a business license. The collective also is in
violation of the county's moratorium on marijuana dispensaries. The
collective appealed to the Board of Supervisors last year but was denied.

County officials said last month they turned the matter over to the
District Attorney's Office. A spokesman for the office did not return
messages seeking a status of that review.