Last Friday, the city of San Diego Medical Marijuana Task Force held its second-to-last meeting for the calendar year. The meeting focused on what the permitting process should be for dispensaries and how far collectives and cooperatives should be kept away from schools and each other.

Alex Kreit, chair of the committee, said the main recommendation to come out of last week’s meeting had to do with conditional use permits. Like the vast majority of other cities and counties in the state, the task force recommended that the city require dispensaries go through the conditional use permitting process. Smaller dispensaries would be reviewed using the Process 2 level, while larger dispensaries would be reviewed at the Process 3 level. Like the permitting processes imposed for other uses of real estate, the processes, ranging from 1-5, are classified based upon how rigorous the review is.

The task force also addressed where the dispensaries can be located in regards to schools and each other. They recommended that dispensaries be located at least 1,000 ft. from schools, and dispensaries no closer than 500 ft. from each other. Both distances are similar to what other cities and counties are currently using.

Last week’s meeting also featured a presentation by former mayoral candidate Steve Francis, who put together a poll measuring San Diegans feelings towards medical marijuana and how it’s supplied. Overall, the poll showed wide support for medical marijuana use, as long as it’s tightly regulated.

“I think that it shows what I’ve sensed to be the feeling in San Diego, that San Diegans don’t want to see collectives and cooperatives banned,” said Kreit. “The vast majority think it’s incredibly important that patients have safe access to their medicine, like they would to any other medicine. San Diegans realize there needs to be a legal method of access and that the method is collectives. I think there is also vast support that they need to be regulated. The poll seems to confirm what the task force has been thinking.”

The final agenda for this week’s meeting has not been released yet. But Kreit says the meeting will center on zoning issues--determining which zones will provide for marijuana dispensaries as an allowable use (presumably with a permit).

“I doubt we will get into a level of detail because the city has a fairly detailed zoning list. I suspect it will be along the lines of a general recommendation of the types of zones we will think are appropriate,” he said.

One interesting aspect that the task force is looking into has to deal with the nonprofit angle.  The group is looking into having some kind of process where dispensaries would have to provide evidence that they plan to act as a non-profit. A recent crackdown by County DA Bonnie Dumanis brought up questions about whether local dispensaries were making a profit, something they are not supposed to be doing.

                                        

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Comments (1)

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I think laws and policies already exsist concerning non-profit and not for profit, let the IRS function as designed, not local police ,you don't hear about other np's and nfp's getting raided constantly,law enforcement should shift their focus to prevent diversion to kids and non mmj uses

SDbudz , November 06, 2009

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