PLANNERS BACK AMENDMENT FOR MEDICAL-MARIJUANA REGULATIONS

The Scottsdale Planning Commission on Wednesday backed a text
amendment establishing regulations to comply with a new state law that
legalizes growing, manufacturing and dispensing medical marijuana in
the city.

The amendment will apply to those who would dispense to qualifying
patients, as well as patients who would grow their own. The move is
the result of voter approval of Proposition 203 last month.

Commission Chairman Michael D'Andrea made it clear the evening would
not be a debate on the merits of the law because the "law is what it
is," and instead would focus on the appropriate areas for dispensing,
manufacturing and growing medical marijuana.

The commission voted, 5-1, to recommend dispensing, manufacturing and
growing be allowed without a conditional use permit in the special
campus zoning district as part of a hospital or medical campus. Also,
dispensing and manufacturing would be allowed in the commercial office
zoning district with a conditional use permit.

Dispensing, manufacturing and growing would be allowed in the
industrial park district - characterized by manufacturing, processing,
research and development, and wholesale activities - with a
conditional use permit.

Qualifying patients would be allowed to grow medical marijuana within
their homes, and qualified patient caregivers would be allowed to grow
it in the industrial park district with a conditional use permit.

The commission's recommendation now goes to the City
Council.

Vice Chairman Ed Grant cast the dissenting vote because the text
amendment doesn't prohibit patients from growing medical marijuana
within their homes.

"I don't think it's appropriate for this to be allowed at all in a
residential district," he said. "I think that what we proposed to the
council . . . provides plenty of other opportunities for patients to
obtain their medical marijuana, and thus having it in a residential
district is not appropriate because of the proximity to what our
residents have expressed . . . that they didn't want it in residential
areas."

According to interpretation of state law, qualified patients would be
allowed to use medical marijuana several months before licenses are
granted for dispensaries. Therefore, patients would be allowed to grow
their own until dispensaries are licensed, and then would be allowed
to grow their own only if their homes are at least 25 miles from the
nearest dispensary.

"I think that it will be very difficult for us as a city to regulate
that and I don't want to impose undue burden on our code-enforcement
folks to have to try to do that," Grant said.

Public comment centered on suggestions for the city to proceed with
the text amendment. Diana Kaminski, a south Scottsdale resident, is
concerned about opening residential areas to cultivation by allowing
patients to grow their own medical marijuana.

"There will not be enough oversight of the residential areas to go
back after the fact and tell them to close," she said. "So we have
businesses that are trying to open legitimate locations . . . and all
the regulations that the state is going to have to oversee them . . .
that will not be addressed in a single-family home, and there is not
enough capacity for the state or the city to go back and retroactively
try to enforce that in a residential area."

Michael McGinn, a Scottsdale resident and lobbyist, is working with a
group of dispensary operators in California who are interested in
expanding to Arizona. He said the city's regulations need to ensure
dispensaries are easily accessible to all patients. "If they make it
too exclusive or too hard to get to, they're going to have people
wanting to get to a facility and they can't," he said.

The council's hearing on the text amendment is tentatively set for
Jan. 25.