A smoke house that was shut down by the City last year for selling medical marijuana without a permit.
3:00pm | As the City Council prepares to re-examine the way that medical marijuana collectives operate in Long Beach, 5th District Councilmember Gerrie Schipske has created a 5-question survey that she is inviting residents to take. The results will be shared with the City Council, she says.
After initial technical difficulties, Councilmember Schipske has provided us with a working link for the survey. Click here to access it. You can also find it on her blog, here.
Along with councilmembers Gary DeLong and Patrick O’Donnell, Schipske aims to place further restrictions on the collectives, months after the City Council adopted an ordinance that outlined the rules. Columnist Greggory Moore argued recently that opening the discussion now after the rules for businesses have already been established is unfair.
Schipske makes no bones about her intentions, explaining that she and her two colleagues are trying “to tighten up the regulation of these collectives BEFORE they open for business.” The survey asks whether a rule prohibiting collectives from operating within 1,000 feet of schools should also apply to parks, libraries and day care centers. Another question asks whether there is support for a ballot measure that would prohibit all medical marijuana collectives from operating in Long Beach.
“The City Council has every right (and obligation) to make a bad law better BEFORE we allow any operation of these outlets,” Schipske writes in a blog entitled Why Controlling Marijuana Collectives is Like Limiting Airplanes Over a Neighborhood, posted today.
The survey is quick and simple, and though an overwhelming majority of people answered that they reside in the 5th District – including myself – it is open to any resident of the city. The results thus far are available after you complete the survey, but I won’t reveal them here because of a currently low sample, and to avoid persuading you to answer for or against the status quo.