City Council unanimously voted Tuesday night to direct the City Attorney’s office to prepare several recommendations and options for how the city can regulate medical marijuana. This agenda item comes at the heels of an appeals court decision that invalidated a signature campaign to bring medical marijuana regulation to the voters.
The Long Beach Citizens’ and Patients’ Rights political action committee had registered 43,159 signatures they believed would be sufficient to place an initiative on a special election ballot. When the City Clerk’s office randomly sampled the signatures for validity, however, it was determined that not enough signatures were valid to meet the threshold required for a special election.
Because not enough of the random sample qualified for a full count, the entirety of the signature base was not reviewed. Jeremy Coltharp and Edith Frazier of the PAC asked that the full signature list be reviewed, on a basis of clerical errors and questionable practices, which was denied. Additionally, the petitioners asked the City Clerk to certify that the petition qualified for at least the 10% required valid signatures needed for a ballot measure to be placed on the April 8, 2014 election. This request was also denied.
Subsequently a federal lawsuit was filed on behalf of the LBCPR PAC. On Monday, federal district court judge Audrey Collins ruled in favor of City Clerk Larry Herrera.
“Given that we have a court of appeals ruling against the medical marijuana in the affirmative, we feel that the city should honor the will of the petition,” said 2nd District Councilmember Suja Lowenthal in the opening statements of the agenda item on Tuesday. “This is not to say the city clerk erred in the interpretation of city code. However the council has the obligation to ensure the spirit of the election process is being honored.”
{loadposition latestnews}
Every member of the City Council spoke positively for the item, which would direct the City Attorney to provide guidance and recommendations on how to regulate medical marijuana. A previously used lottery-style permitting process for medical marijuana dispensaries was found to be in conflict with Federal law. Currently, medical marijuana dispensaries are banned within city limits via zoning laws, a practice that was upheld by the California Supreme Court in May.
No specific idea was set in stone at Tuesday’s meeting, but the discussions served as the first step in the process for evaluating many factors in incorporating medical marijuana into a city ordinance. Some of these factors included zoning regulations, caps on total number of dispensaries by district, and also factors like growing and transporting marijuana.
“I had to recognize that over 30,000 voters in the city of Long Beach signed on to have a ballot item. I can’t ignore that that is an amazing accomplishment to get that many signatures. This is an issue we cannot ignore as a City Council,” said 8th District Councilmember Al Austin.
The City Attorney’s office indicated that their first step would be to work with the Planning Commission on the zoning issues, and felt that it had received enough direction from the Council to begin the preliminary steps. City Council members repeatedly expressed concerns for keeping the public informed, and to not hesitate to share information with one another with ideas, and examples from other cities.
But City Council was also very insistent that if this process were to move forward, then the City shall still have the ability to revoke or deny operators that are not compliant with City ordinances and procedures.
“This is a very fluid issue. I think that this body has shown there is an effort to do the right thing. I think it has been proven that what we are attempting to do benefits the city,” said 9th District Councilmember Steven Neal. “Hopefully we can come out of here this evening with something we can all live with.”
Click here to read our policies covering city council.
Read more: