Dispensaries last stand Tuesday

Dispensaries' last stand Tuesday

By Ron Green
Updated: 12/05/2011 05:44:47 PM PST

The Dispensaries' last stand is at 2 p.m. Tuesday at the Board of Supervisors meeting.

The county is now trying to shut down all the dispensaries via heavy-handed threats to the landlords and dispensaries. Code enforcement related to the dispensaries, which has already started with threatening notices to dispensary landlords, is on the board agenda.

This is a detailed summary of the strange turn of events at (and following) the Oct. 18 Board meeting, when the agenda item was published as "Discussion/consideration regarding Elections Official's Certificate of Examination of Referendum Petition protesting the adoption of Lake County Ordinance No. 2956 (Medical Marijuana Dispensaries)."

The board voted at that meeting to rescind its dispensary ordinance rather than putting it before the voters in the June election. This vote may have been in violation of the Brown Act because of inadequate notice to the public of the real subject, and the agenda item should have been worded more clearly and accurately, such as "discussion/consideration whether to rescind the dispensary ordinance or put it to the voters."

The board also discussed code enforcement against the dispensaries, even though that was clearly not on the agenda, but seemed to put the discussion on hold until it could be duly-noticed as an agenda item. In fact, during the discussion Supervisor Anthony Farrington suggested that the issue of shutting them all down should go on a future

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agenda and County Counsel Anita Grant immediately agreed unequivocally. Later, Farrington reiterated: "I would suggest that we act only on what's before us today [the referendum] and put it (code enforcement) on a future agenda for discussion." Then, board Chair Jim Comstock asked County Counsel: "Can we act on anything other than what's before us today?" County Counsel responded: "You can give direction to staff that is related to the action you have to take but nothing beyond that, and since code enforcement itself is not on the agenda, it may be better to wait to put it on for a later time."
Supervisor Rob Brown ended the discussion by making a motion to "rescind the ordinance and direct staff to take appropriate action consistent with every other code enforcement action that is taken with any other violation of the code." He added that he "assume[s] that's largely complaint-driven." Farrington then tried to add that the board will put code enforcement on the agenda for future discussion, but Brown replied that's not his motion and Farrington replied that's OK he'll support the motion and will put code enforcement on a future agenda himself.

It appears that the majority of supervisors did not realize they were actually voting to direct Rick Coel of the Community Development Department (CDD) to threaten the property owners/landlords and dispensaries to shut them all down. But, that is what has happened since that meeting. The vote appears to have violated the Brown Act, the rescission, because it was inadequately noticed and the code enforcement because it was not noticed at all, especially in light of how Coel has interpreted the motion and vote.

Two weeks after that meeting, on Nov. 4, Coel sent notices to landlords, with copies to the dispensaries and the Lake County Sheriff, putting tremendous pressure on the landlords to evict the dispensaries. I understand that Coel threatened the landlords with abatement and the assessment of costs and liens for "several thousand dollars" if they did not evict the dispensaries. The notice says that the board in 2009 determined the dispensaries are not an allowed use in the zoning ordinance (I disagree) and that this was "reaffirmed" by the board and enforcement action has been authorized by the board.

But in fact, the Brown motion that passed was vague and couched in terms of "complaint-driven" with an apparent understanding that code enforcement would be discussed at a future meeting. And, Coel's heavy-handed tactic of threatening the dispensary landlords to force them to evict the dispensaries instead of allowing the dispensaries the usual remedy of appearing before the board in an abatement action, was not directed nor anticipated by the majority of the board members.

A sad state of affairs, indeed. The senior citizens and veterans who, without question really use cannabis medically (those with MS, glaucoma, cancer, intractable pain, PTSD, AIDS, etc.) are the ones that will suffer the most, since many of them don't know where to obtain cannabis except at dispensaries. The questionable medical users will probably find it on the streets and back alleys, but not the really ill seniors and veterans.

This primarily hurts the most vulnerable medical marijuana users who rely on the safety, legality and convenience of the dispensaries.

Shutting down the dispensaries after years of trouble-free operation is a deplorable retaliation against the entire medical marijuana community, because of the two or three dispensaries that ran a successful referendum campaign in an attempt to put this issue before the voters in a true exercise of participatory democracy.

Ron Green

Lower Lake