HOW TO SOLVE ARCATA'S GROW HOUSE CRISIS

The Arcata City Council is about to form a task force to study plans
for a proposed ordinance to regulate the lawful indoor growing of
medical marijuana plants. Right now, people grow medical marijuana
indoors surreptitiously and often under unsafe conditions; the amount
of electricity needed to maintain a grow through harvest often
overloads jerry-rigged systems in residential rental units. Growers
show a lack of concern and until now, the city has failed to address
the problem.

It is important that the task force be clear from the beginning about
the role of the City Council. The council should not try to enforce
the Penal Code and so the police should have no input on this issue.
The council should view the safety of marijuana grows as they would
the growing of heirloom tomatoes in residential apartments.

Tomatoes need a lot of sun, as does marijuana, and thus a lot of
electricity. If tomato growers started growing Brandywines in
residential neighborhoods, overloading the electrical wiring and
starting fires, the community would have to do something about it.
But bringing in the police would be out of the question.

The state allows medical marijuana grows. Humboldt County allows up
to 100 plants or 10 square feet of plant canopy. Although that's a
much greater allowance than you'll find anywhere else, this is not
the time to debate whether these grows are really geared for the sale
of medical marijuana. If a grower complies with state and county
limits, the city needs to recognize it as legal.

But a valid question is whether agriculture belongs in residential
houses and apartments, particularly in a city with a housing shortage.

So what to do? I believe that Arcata needs to provide public garden
areas for people to grow medical marijuana in designated areas that
are protected and secured.

These public gardens could be on City property in greenhouses similar
to the types of grows now going on in apartment houses and homes. The
police would stay off limits and the only inspection would be from
building and safety and fire officials, who would make sure that
these public facilities are safe.

Arcata should provide all individuals who have proper medical
marijuana cards this opportunity to grow in the sanctuary of public
gardens. The City could charge fees equivalent to the cost of
electricity these people would spend on grows in their homes. We
could also use solar energy to replace the thousands of megawatts now
polluting our air.

How would this be funded? How are our community gardens now funded?
It might mean an additional fee on landlords, but they will now have
their properties protected from the risk of property damage or fire
from illegal grow operations. The growers themselves can contribute
what they can.

Finally, landlords have to start taking responsibility. Landlords
make money on their property and they have to make sure their units
are safe and habitable. Just as we expect them to do something to
stop a rock band from practicing in the middle of the night in a
quiet neighborhood or a multi-unit apartment building, or make sure
that a deck doesn't collapse or a bathtub drop from a second floor
apartment because of rotted wood, we should expect them to do
something about people operating grows under unsafe conditions.

A grow takes several months. It is not unreasonable for a landlord to
inspect his or her property three times a year. Some do that now
simply to make sure a tenant doesn't bring in a dog or cat.

Any city ordinance to regulate indoor grows should include sanctions
to make sure landlords do their part; they are the front line in this
quest to make the City safe from fires caused by marijuana grows.

Let's not spend a year on this. Let's treat this as a safety problem
and a medical services issue. We need to allow those who are entitled
to grow medical marijuana to continue growing.

But we need to also protect the City from hazardous conditions and do
something about the inappropriate use of housing structures.