Clearlake >> The City Council will likely take a step closer to banning any and all marijuana cultivation at tonight’s meeting with a proposed ordinance that would declare it a public nuisance.
With the city’s current ordinance adopted September 2013, medical marijuana patients are granted the right to grow anywhere from six to 48 plants, depending on the size of the resident’s parcel and other factors, including distances from neighbors, schools and child care centers. However, the council now cites in the proposed “zero-grow” ordinance that cultivation threatens the public’s safety “based on the value of marijuana plants, threat of break-ins, robbery and theft” as well as the “skunk-like fumes” the plant produces.
Clearlake City Councilwoman Joyce Overton says her biggest issue is that, “We really went out of our way to be good with the six plants outside and people took advantage of it.” Adding, “We can’t continue on with the way it was last year. We tried it, our whole town became a marijuana grow.”
At the Jan. 22 meeting where the city council approved the ordinance language, Clearlake Police Department Chief Craig Clausen estimated officers spend two to five hours per day responding to marijuana-related issues through compliance checks or calls for service.
Several hundred Clearlake residents and their supporters have joined the Facebook group “Sick Lives Matter” to gain momentum in the protest against the proposed ordinance.
Councilman Bruno Sabatier, who provided the only dissent to the ordinance language in the 4-1 vote, posted a message encouraging constituents to attend the city council meeting.
“There is an overwhelming support for medical marijuana in our community, we need to show that support on February 12 and fill up the entire chamber,” Sabatier stated.
If past city council meetings with marijuana on the agenda are any indication, the council and attendees can anticipate a meeting that lasts several hours longer than the usual.
The council is scheduled to hold the first reading of the no-grow ordinance tonight, by title only, and schedule a second reading and adoption on Feb. 26. The zero-grow ordinance would then go into effect 30 days after.
Any person legally growing marijuana for medical purposes will have 30 days from the effective date to cultivate, and after the grace period ends, will be subject to fines and penalties and guilty of a misdemeanor if he or she does not comply, according to the ordinance.
“(Medical marijuana patients) will either be forced to buy from the dispensaries, or forced to forgo using medical marijuana to help them with their symptoms and ailments,” Sabatier stated.
Overton also discussed the possibility of medical marijuana patients turning to the black market for their medication, but she says that will “pretty much happen with any drug.”
A resident found to be growing marijuana will first receive an abatement order that typically gives the person 15 days to eradicate, during which time the person has the right to schedule a hearing to defend their grow.
If the work is not done within the time allotted, the city will have the right to “abate the nuisance without further notification,” according to the proposed ordinance. Additionally, the property owner would be responsible for all costs associated with the removal.
Administrative citations are another consequence listed in the ordinance. “For each and every medical marijuana plant cultivated,” it states, the penalty is $1,000 and an additional $100 per plant per day will be charged every day past the abatement deadline.
Overton says she’s still on the fence about it.
“I haven’t made my mind up,” Overton said, “but I do know we need to do something.”
Multiple phone calls to other city council members and Clearlake police were not returned as of press time.
The Clearlake City Council meeting takes place at 6 p.m. at the Highlands Senior Services Center located at 3245 Bowers Ave.
