OFFICIALS MOVE TOWARD PERMANENT BAN ON POT CLUBS

Operators of medical marijuana dispensaries won't need to consider
Milpitas as a place to do business anytime soon. Last week, citing
adverse impacts like increased criminal activity, Milpitas officials
advanced actions to permanently ban pot clubs here.

Milpitas City Council unanimously voted May 15 to craft and introduce
an ordinance by June 5 to ban all medical marijuana dispensaries
within city limits.

The council's vote aims to extend the city's more than 22-month
moratorium on pot clubs set in 2005. That initial moratorium is
scheduled to expire on July 23.

Prior to the vote, Peter Spoerl, a Milpitas assistant city attorney,
offered the city council four legislative options the city could enact
to deal with the establishment of medical marijuana dispensaries,
allowed under state law by the 1996 Compassionate Use Act.

. The first legislative option presented included amending current
zoning to include and allow dispensaries to operate.

. A second option would have the city adopt legislation allowing
dispensaries, but only when the operations of those businesses do not
conflict with state and federal laws as they do now.

. A third option would regulate dispensaries by location or operation.
This option would restrict businesses in certain zones including
proximity from schools, parks and child-care facilities.

Worried about drug-related crime and criminality, the council was
unimpressed with the first three options.

. They quickly chose the fourth option, to ban all medical marijuana
clubs.

Councilwoman Althea Polanski was a dissenting vote on the initial
moratorium nearly two years ago.

Polanski previously stated the city's planning division could better
regulate establishment of marijuana clubs through the normal process
of review, as it does for all prospective businesses.

Last week, Polanski suggested conflicting federal and state laws
regarding marijuana use made the issue more volatile legal issues she
felt should be hashed out elsewhere, and not in Milpitas.

"Probably the best course of action would be to adopt an ordinance to
prohibit it, and let the courts work it out on their own someplace
else," Polanski said.

And although he acknowledged the use of medical marijuana by some to
remedy severe illnesses, Vice Mayor Bob Livengood was adamantly
opposed to pot clubs.

"There's no place for such businesses in Milpitas," he said. "It's
been shown time and time again they are truly a magnet for crime."

Livengood cited media reports that painted a grim picture about
medical marijuana dispensaries operating in San Francisco. The reports
alleged the pot clubs there were being used by organized crime, in
part, as places for illegal drug sales.

"With businesses like that we don't need them," Livengood
said.

He added that Milpitas would be taking a "step backwards" if pot clubs
were allowed to open and operate here.

Milpitas Police Chief Dennis Graham was called upon by Mayor Jose
Esteves to give his views on pot clubs. The police chief agreed with
the council.

"I think it's just going to be a magnet for outside trouble; people
coming in from the outside and taking advantage of the dispensaries
for all of the reasons that have been talked about tonight," Graham
said.

Mayor Esteves said Milpitas was too small a city to accommodate
dispensaries.

"Anywhere you go almost always there's a school close by...," he
said.

The mayor added "limited public safety resources" like Milpitas'
police force would be adversely strained by keeping tabs on the
activities at pot clubs.

Ultimately, Milpitas City Council directed city staff to return to the
council's June 5 meeting for a first reading of a new ordinance to ban
pot clubs. A second reading of the ordinance is expected at the
council's June 19 meeting.

The new regulation would take 30 days to go into affect, starting four
days before the July 23 moratorium expires.