'OAKSTERDAM' POT CLUBS MAY FACE LICENSING, ZONING RULES

If there's an epicenter of the nation's medicinal marijuana movement, it
may be right here in a gritty six-block area near Oakland City Hall, where
at least 11 dispensaries sell pot to any California resident with a
doctor's note.

Some of the people who use pot to ease symptoms of AIDS, cancer and other
illnesses leave quickly, tucking small bags of the drug into their purse or
pockets. Others stay at the clubs, where pot smoke occasionally wafts into
the street, earning the neighborhood the nickname ``Oaksterdam,'' after the
freewheeling Dutch capital where marijuana use has been decriminalized.

While federal law prohibits the use or sale of marijuana for any reason,
nine states including California permit the use of marijuana for medicinal
purposes. Since voters approved a state ballot measure legalizing medicinal
marijuana in 1996, ``pot clubs'' have popped up in California cities
including San Francisco, Hayward, Los Angeles and Santa Cruz. But nowhere
is their concentration as high as in Oakland, leading some residents of
this famously tolerant city of 400,000 to wonder whether the proliferation
of clubs has gone too far.

``I'm a strong supporter of implementing voters' wishes in making sure
medical marijuana is available to patients who need it,'' said Councilwoman
Nancy Nadel, whose district includes Oaksterdam. ``But because the industry
has expanded quite quickly in our city, we need to put some regulations in
place.''

The so-called Oaksterdam neighborhood is gentrifying, and most businesses
in the immediate area have welcomed the pot clubs, saying they've helped
the local economy.

But the city council is set to vote as early as next week on several
proposed restrictions, after complaints from some business owners about
problems ranging from the smoke to an escalation of street violence.

Armed robbers recently tied up a bouncer outside one marijuana club and
fled with marijuana and a significant amount of cash. It was the last straw
for the Sexual Minority Alliance of Alameda County, a gay-and-lesbian youth
center next door. Its director decided to move the center.

``It's very good to have the clubs, but it brings in a lot of sketchy
people who are trying to profit off the legalization,'' said Brian Bauman,
who owns a record store near three of the clubs. ``It brings people who
hang around the streets and harass patients coming to pick up their medicine.''

That the council would consider any restrictions on the clubs is a striking
departure from the past.

In 1998, the city enacted what many advocates consider the most sweeping
protection of medicinal marijuana use in the country, allowing patients to
possess 24 times the amount of pot permitted under state law, and
deputizing operators of a cannabis collective as ``officers of the city,''
a title that confers some protection from local police enforcement. With
the Oaksterdam area's relatively cheap rent and access to public
transportation, the policy made Oakland a magnet for distributors.

Now the council is considering a requirement that clubs carry business
licenses, or zoning rules that would limit the concentration of clubs in an
area. The city's far-reaching anti-smoking ordinance, which prohibits
smoking in any commercial building unless it has a separate ventilation
system, probably will be applied to the clubs as well.

Even the club owners have concluded that some limits could be a good thing.

``The clubs are definitely starting to push the boundaries -- it's part of
figuring out how we fit in the medical world,'' said Ken Estes, owner of
the 420 Cafe, a pot club that serves about 1,000 patients each week.

Estes, who has used marijuana to treat pain ever since a motorcycle
accident paralyzed him 20 years ago, said he would favor limits on the
growth of the clubs.

``To slow fear down, I would really like to come up with a moratorium to
stop growth and then revisit it after a few months,'' Estes said.

But Ed Rosenthal, an Oakland resident and leader in the national medicinal
marijuana movement, said the clubs could remedy many problems on their own,
like beefing up security and purchasing ``negative ion generators'' which
would cut the smell of smoke. Any government efforts to regulate the clubs
would only hurt sick patients, Rosenthal argued.

``By having a number of facilities, there is competition and it brings down
the price,'' Rosenthal said. ``If there are fewer of these clubs, it means
more people will be buying on the street.''

Earlier this year, Rosenthal himself was at the center of a pitched clash
with federal drug laws: He was convicted on charges of cultivating
marijuana, though the city of Oakland had deputized him to do so.

Adam Lerch, a lifelong Oakland resident who just opened a restaurant called
the Hot Dog Stand, down the street from the 420 Cafe, said he is a strong
supporter of the clubs. He likes their commitment to sick people, he said,
and he thinks they will be good for his business.

``You smoke pot, you get the munchies -- and I'm selling the food!'' Lerch
said.