Two is enough for Santa Cruz City Council as pot-shop ordinance gets first reading

Gotta break out this quote from a would-be dispensary operator: “Limiting it to two (dispensaries in Santa Cruz) is a slap in face to the medical marijuana community. I see it as Jim Crow and nothing else. We’ve gone from being criminals to second-class citizens.” Read on…

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The Santa Cruz City Council preliminarily approved a new medical marijuana ordinance Tuesday that restricts the number of dispensaries to the two that already exist.

The new rules would allow those pot collectives to grow their own supply and sell clone plants to patients, the Santa Cruz Sentinel’s J.M. Brown reports.

Tuesday’s vote was designed to introduce the ordinance and hear initial public reaction. The council will vote on a final version March 23, when a 7 p.m. session will be held to give the public a greater chance to weigh in on the proposal.

Several medical marijuana advocates urged the council not to restrict dispensaries to just two, the only dispensaries in the county with a permit. Saying local demand far outweighs supply, opponents of the ban argued having more dispensaries will lower prices and reduce illegal drug dealing.

“Limiting the number of dispensaries is not only unrealistic … it keeps prices up,” said Gloria Barnes, a medical marijuana user. “Let’s think of Santa Cruz as it really is, as a forward-looking community that has started an international movement toward compassionate relief for people who want to use a plant.”

Los Angeles recently reduced its number of dispensaries, and two local cities, Scotts Valley and Monterey, have approved temporary bans to study the issue.

The Santa Cruz Council unanimously agreed on the overall ordinance, which replaces a moratorium on new dispensaries first passed last June, but raised questions regarding the size of cultivation space and whether dispensaries are really operating as nonprofit collectives or cooperatives as outlined in state law. Several council members also expressed concerns about proposed requirements for more extensive financial reporting.

The new rules would allow dispensaries to cultivate pot and sell clones, but the grow space would be restricted to 3,000 square feet. City planners initially suggested the space be limited to 2,000 square feet, but Councilman Don Lane suggested increasing it to allow for greater room between rows.

A number of medical marijuana advocates, including a current dispensary representative who wanted 10,000 square feet for growing pot, took issue with estimates by a sheriff’s expert that 2,000 square feet could produce up to 432 pounds of pot. The dispensaries said they could produce about a third of that amount in 2,000 square feet.

City planners acknowledged law enforcement is eager to see the city limit growing space out of concern that unchecked cultivation could lead to an increase in armed robberies. Santa Cruz police report that they responded to a total of 44 calls for service in 2008 and 2009 at the two current dispensaries, Greenway and the Santa Cruz Patients Collective, both of which are in the Harvey West area. Most of the calls were for burglary alarms, but there were several robbery, burglary, theft and battery reports.

In the event that one of the clubs closes or moves, the proposed ordinance would require any new site be 600 feet away from a residential zone, leaving only the Harvest West industrial park, the Highway 1 and Highway 9 area and the Delaware Avenue area as potential locations. The rules would also require clubs to submit an operation manual and financial statement to the city for approval.

But Councilwoman Cynthia Mathews, who as a former Planned Parenthood director is sympathetic to demands for data collection on nonprofits, said she wants to see proposed reporting requirements “simplified a lot.” However, she said she supported limiting the number of dispensaries in the interest of public safety.

“We limit a lot of things,” she said, referring to alcohol sales restrictions. “It makes sense to me that we limit this.”

Stuart Kriege, whose application to open a third dispensary prompted the city’s study of an ordinance, said, “Limiting it to two is a slap in face to the medical marijuana community. I see it as Jim Crow and nothing else. We’ve gone from being criminals to second-class citizens.”

Several residents spoke in favor of the restrictions, saying limiting pot sales protects a community already battling drug-related crime.

“Adding a third dispensary isn’t going to bring everyone from the underground,” said Analica Cube, a co-founder of the anti-crime advocacy group Take Back Santa Cruz. “Street marijuana is always going to be cheaper than medical marijuana. My concern is, I don’t want Santa Cruz to be the fall guy.”

The new rules would not affect the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana because it is not considered a dispensary.