UKIAH >> The Board of Supervisors for Mendocino County tentatively approved a mix of regulatory restrictions and freedoms for future owners of non-cultivation cannabis businesses at a workshop meeting Friday.
If a pair of recently drafted ordinances take shape according to the board’s preliminary directions to staff, recreational users could consume products inside stores, cash-strapped patients could receive medical products free of charge, and entrepreneurs could establish their businesses in close proximity to one another.
Recreational users, however, could not get freebies from retail outlets, and, under the zoning code drafted by staff, prospective non-cultivation business owners would face a higher level of scrutiny from county regulators than growers as they seek to secure permits.
The ordinances would regulate the processing, manufacturing, testing, dispensing, distributing, delivering and transporting of marijuana. Staff sought guidance from the board on a number of unresolved policies to be incorporated into the drafts, which were published the day before the meeting.
Supervisors gave their qualified approval to onsite consumption, expressing wariness of neighborhood reactions and limiting that right to dispensaries and retail outlets for the time being.
Supervisor Dan Gjerde insisted on a way to address neighbors’ concerns, and Mary Lynn Hunt, a senior planner at Planning and Building Services, noted that the public would be invited to comment on any proposed cannabis business during a discretionary review.
The board drew a distinction between medical dispensaries and retail outlets in considering the issue of freebies. During public comment, a member of the audience related a story of a man whose cancer disappeared after he took cannabis medicine, and Supervisor Carre Brown later threw her support behind granting a right to provide free medicine. Gjerde, however, contrasted free medicine with promotional retail giveaways, calling them an “entry point for use.”
The board dispensed with the idea of setbacks between stores or dispensaries, a measure that could prevent an industry from concentrating in one area and creating a de-facto cannabis district. Supervisor McCowen dismissed the idea, reasoning that the county, due to its rural nature, offered limited room for businesses to accumulate.
Moreover, dispensaries are currently operating in the county without antagonizing the surrounding community, he said. Hunt again noted that dispensaries would undergo a discretionary public review.
The board discussed prohibiting the sale of cannabis alongside other items, such as alcohol, tobacco and food, but ultimately did not reach a decision. Gjerde cited a county study showing that the county had twice the number of alcohol-vending stores as the state average and wondered whether allowing mixed sales would increase that disparity.
Dave Jensen, director of the Environmental Health Division, cautioned that the state could decide sometime in the future to prohibit mixed merchandise. The county should avoid making a decision on allowing it so that entrepreneurs do not end up wasting money on a license they cannot use, he said.
