SHASTA COUNTY PLANNERS TO CONSIDER MEDICAL POT ISSUES

Dispensary Ban, Ordinances to Be Discussed

In the first local discussion after recent federal crackdowns on
medical cannabis in California, Shasta County planning commissioners
will consider recommending county supervisors ban dispensaries and
update regulations on cultivation in unincorporated parts of the
county at Thursday's meeting.

The recommendation from the county Resource Management Department
comes after a series of moratoria first enacted by county supervisors
in early 2010 on medical marijuana collectives in the county.

Establishing dispensaries has been illegal in unincorporated areas
since, although the city of Redding currently has 16 collectives.

Federal strikes against medical marijuana dispensaries in California
have upset medical marijuana proponents in the past week after
letters were sent to dozens of collectives statewide, alleging
they're "pervasive, for-profit" operations and demanding they shut
down in less than two months.

But the timing of the county's medical marijuana review is only a
coincidence, said Shasta County's assistant resource management
director, Rick Simon. Planners have been studying the effects of
dispensaries in the area since the initial moratorium was enacted.

"This stuff that (federal prosecutors) are doing now is really kind
of an interesting timing, but it is coincidental," he said.

Planning commissioners Thursday will decide whether to recommend
supervisors adopt two ordinances, one banning collectives
indefinitely and one setting guidelines for growing medical cannabis
in the unincorporated county.

In a report to planning commissioners, the Resource Management
Department identifies several key "issues" regarding dispensaries
that staff members have observed in talking with other jurisdictions
and local law enforcement.

They include increased violence and crime, poor environmental
conditions and living conditions near grows, complaints regarding
smell and resulting difficulty breathing, loitering, illegal drug
sales and noise.

But Phillip Stone, 21, an employee at the River Valley Collective in
Redding, said traveling all the way into town is taxing for many of
the collective's customers who live in more rural areas.

"It's a huge burden on them, no doubt," he said.

Stone said he doesn't think complaints that marijuana dispensaries
smell are serious enough to forbid them altogether.

"So does getting your lawn cut. Having the trash people come through
is smelly," he said.

Still, there also are a number of recent legal cases "which make
clear the authority of local jurisdictions to regulate medical
marijuana dispensaries and cultivation," the staff report reads,
including Assembly Bill 1300, which will take effect in January and
says the Medical Marijuana Program Act won't prevent local government
from adopting ordinances regulating the location or establishment of
collectives.

In addition, the new ordinances wouldn't completely ban county
residents from growing marijuana at their homes.

The ordinance would let "qualified patients and primary caregivers"
grow on their property as long as the crops are no more than 200
square feet, depending on parcel size. Indoor grows, on the other
hand, can't be bigger than 100 square feet.

There would also be a 1,000-foot "no-grow" zone around schools and
"sensitive" places.

"We believe that strikes a reasonable balance between meeting the
needs of those patients that do require medical marijuana while
protecting the integrity of neighborhoods, the safety of
neighborhoods and concerns of neighboring property owners," Simon
said. "Our intent is to try to accommodate kind of a personal scale
allowance for cultivation and avoid or strongly discourage any
large-scale cultivation operations, where, in our view, a lot of the
problems occur."