Lake County >> Reestablishing Article 72 for the cultivation of medical marijuana in rural lands continues to be pushed back as the county looks for more information on where the state stands.
A public hearing was held at the Board of Supervisors meeting this week to discuss approval of the cannabis ordinance. But with state town hall meetings coming up in July, the board felt it would be more beneficial to wait on ordinance approval.
If approved, the new measure will include a self-certification compliance process, a pilot program that includes rural lands and a process to determine the priority of permits. This last is to aid medicinal growers who were compliant before recreational use and have a permit from the State Water Quality Board that is Tier 1, 2 or 3.
Bob Massarelli, Director of the Planning Division, said with the ordinance in place, it will allow a way to check compliance with Article 72 — a detail that does not currently exist.
Compliance check will be made by Code Enforcement once the updated Article is passed.
Board Chair and District 2 Supervisor Jeff Smith said for the self-certification process, there should be penalties for certain violations. For example, he explained that if there is an overage of plants, the penalty should be much harder than that if the fencing is not right.
“Doing the self-certification is what it sounds like it should be and that’s what everybody out here agreed to. If they want to have the self-compliance deal, it’s going to be really strict,” Smith said.
Although the county has decided to wait for the passing of the updated ordinance, District 1 Supervisor Moke Simon said he would like to see this passed sooner rather than later.
“We need to get the ordinance in place so we can get some regulation and some standards put together so we know how this industry is going to look in Lake County,” Simon said. “It’s a very difficult decision and we keep dragging this on.”
He added that people have been using a lot of time to come back and forth to the meetings that have been happening since marijuana became legal. This has used up a lot of their time and the county’s when trying to establish ordinance with the state permitting process of commercial use coming around the corner.
“Ag (agriculture) is well respected here in the county, it’s a huge part of what we are in Lake County and this is just going to add to it,” Simon said
County Staff has spent a lot of time looking at this ordinance and making sure it is in order for the county Smith said. From that they have not had much time for other projects they could be working on to help benefit the county such as disaster victim housing and other planning issues.
The county will reconvene on adopting Article 72 on August 1 at 10 a.m. after attending other marijuana meetings and taking a few weeks to review what they have learned.
