POT STORE TO REOPEN -- IN MORRO BAY

The Dispensary Shut Down by Atascadero Officials Plans to Set Up Shop
in Its New Location by April 1

A marijuana dispensary shut down by Atascadero city officials has
found a new location in Morro Bay.

Central Coast Compassionate Caregivers has received a business license
and is expected to open April 1, said Louis Koory, the co-op's attorney.

"I think they decided to focus on the patients," instead of fighting
Atascadero to remain open in the strip mall on El Camino Real, Koory
said.

"It was just a matter of finding a location," he added. "Morro Bay
turned out to be that location."

The dispensary will be at 780 Monterey St., he said. According to
Koory, the business has 300 customers.

Mayor Janice Peters said Monday the city has no restrictions on such
businesses.

"Our council is definitely sympathetic to the medical use of
marijuana," she said.

She said a temporary ban on dispensaries was lifted last
June.

Councilwoman Betty Winholtz said a number of people attended that June
meeting to say that their relatives or friends use marijuana to manage
pain because nothing else worked.

"People have to have a doctor's prescription" to obtain the drug, she
noted. "You can't just walk in off the street."

Compassionate Caregivers opened in Atascadero largely unnoticed Jan.
9.

But after learning of the new business, the Atascadero City Council
voted to craft an ordinance governing where such dispensaries can
operate in the city and ordered that Compassionate Caregivers close
while the law is developed.

Owner Charles Lynch had sued the city to allow his dispensary to stay
open. The request was denied, and Lynch later dropped his lawsuit.

All seven cities in the county weighed in on the medical marijuana
issue over the past year.

While Atascadero opted to regulate where such centers could open and
Morro Bay voted to lift a temporary ban on dispensaries, Pismo Beach
and Grover Beach both put outright bans on the centers.

San Luis Obispo City Attorney Jonathan Lowell has previously said he
didn't feel the city needed to reinstate its temporary ban. He argued
that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled marijuana illegal even for
medicinal purposes, and so anyone dispensing it could be shut down
without a local ordinance.