Front Page  »  

Pismo Beach drops its pot business ban

December 28, 2016

No marijaunaPismo Beach’s urgency ban on most marijuana business activity will expire on Friday, following a city council vote Tuesday.

Last month, despite stiff opposition from Councilman Erik Howell, the Pismo Beach Council adopted an urgency ordinance prohibiting outdoor cultivation, manufacturing, processing, laboratory testing, labeling, storing and wholesale and retail distribution of marijuana. The ordinance came up for renewal at this week’s council meeting.

At Tuesday’s meeting, the council voted 3-2, with Howell and Councilwoman Marcia Guthrie dissenting, to extend the urgency ordinance until Nov. 2017. A 4-1 vote was needed to extend the ordinance.

Proposition 64, which passed in November with 56 percent of the vote, legalized the recreational use of marijuana in California for individuals 21 years and older. California adults can now use and cultivate marijuana in their private homes.

Nevertheless, the ballot initiative allows cities and counties to regulate marijuana businesses and even adopt outright bans on the sale of cannabis.

City Attorney David Fleishman has said the urgency ordinance was needed to buy time as Pismo Beach develops a comprehensive regulatory scheme for marijuana. Prop. 64 calls for a state licensing scheme for marijuana businesses, but state officials do not plant to start issuing licenses for recreational pot stores until 2018.

On Tuesday, Fleishman said, due to erroneous understanding of the new law, the city has already received applications from people wanting to set up recreational marijuana businesses in downtown Pismo Beach. Fleishman said a clear prohibition, like the urgency ordinance, would help clear up the misunderstanding.

Howell repeated his stance that he did not see the urgency of the ordinance. At the previous hearing, Howell said the marijuana resolution read like hysteria and it contradicted itself.

As for medical marijuana, a ban on brick and mortar dispensaries already exists in Pismo Beach, but delivery services are allowed to operate within city limits. Earlier this year, the Pismo Beach Council adopted a ban on the cultivation and processing of medical marijuana.


Loading...
Subjects:             
Related:


2 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Legalization of medical marijuana is not linked with increased traffic fatalities, a new study finds. In some states, in fact, the number of people killed in traffic accidents dropped after medical marijuana laws were enacted.


“Instead of seeing an increase in fatalities, we saw a reduction, which was totally unexpected,” said Julian Santaella-Tenorio, the study’s lead author and a doctoral student at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in New York City.


Deaths dropped 11 percent on average in states that legalized medical marijuana, researchers discovered after analyzing 1.2 million traffic fatalities nationwide from 1985 through 2014.

—————–

Read it. Let it sink in. Stop with the hysteria over marijuana.


0

Still a lot of hysteria and myth surrounding marijuana. It’s going to take a generation to clear it up.


Well, that and it competes with some pretty powerful constituencies, the medical industry and the liquor industry. They are not going to give up their market shares without a fight.


0