MESA WANTS MARIJUANA SHOPS IN SECLUDED AREAS

Mesa won't let medical marijuana shops open in most of its commercial
districts, with city leaders saying they don't want the substance sold
near neighborhoods or in prominent locations.

Instead, the shops will be forced to industrial areas and just one
kind of commercial use.

The city is taking a different approach than most other Arizona
cities, which so far have been restricting the shops to commercial
zones. The city staff had proposed that kind of regulation, but
members of the City Council feared that would put the stores at the
corner of major intersections.

The stores will be restricted from a vast majority of the city, as
they must be at least a mile from each other, 2,400 feet from rehab
facilities, 1,200 feet from churches and schools, and 500 feet from
day-care facilities or preschools.

A map prepared by the city shows only slivers of land where the shops
could open. But when council members saw a close-up map of two major
intersections, they saw that even most of the shopping centers were
within those exclusion zones -- while the areas at the intersection
were permissible.

Councilwoman Dina Higgins noted that would force the shops to the most
prominent spots -- which is what she wants to avoid.

The city had figured the commercial areas would deter crime, as
traffic and pedestrians would have an eye on the shops most of the
time. Industrial zones might be so hidden that there would be no
witnesses to burglaries or attacks on customers to steal their
marijuana, said Gordon Sheffield, the city's zoning administrator. The
approach was based on research by California police after that state
legalized medical marijuana.

However, Mesa police said there are no clear statistics, and there's
been mixed information about whether crime has been an issue around
the shops.

The city is still drafting rules and expects to formally adopt them in
January.

Councilman Dave Richins suggested the city prohibit the sale of any
federally banned substance, which would be a back-door ban on the
shops that some California communities have tried. No other council
members supported that.

"Whether we like it or not, this is the law," Mayor Scott Smith
said.

Councilman Scott Somers said the ban would likely be worthless and
would defy the will of voters who narrowly approved Proposition 203 in
November, which will allow about 120 dispensaries in Arizona. The
state is expected to approve about six to 10 in Mesa, as the locations
will be proportionate to the city's population.

Smith said the worst-case fears over crime around the shops are
probably overblown, based on a recent trip he took to Denver. Medical
marijuana is legally sold at shops in a downtown district, Smith said,
and he saw no evidence they were a hotbed of crime.

"They looked like any other business except for the sign," he
said.

Somers was part of the same trip for a convention and displayed a
booklet he picked up there advertising medical marijuana. The ads
highlighted the recreational aspect of the drug, he said, not the
medical use. One ad showed Tommy Chong of Cheech and Chong fame, and
also a man smoking a joint as large as a beer can. Another featured a
snowboarder flying through the air and calling a particular strain of
the substance "delightful." Somers took a jab at how the substance is
marketed.

"Viagra commercials aren't this entertaining," Somers said.