UKIAH >> The Ukiah City Council is moving forward with changes to Ukiah’s rules for marijuana growing that do not ease the restrictions on outdoor growing, and reduce the numbers of plants residents are allowed to grow.
“The primary aim of this brief ordinance is to bring the city’s cultivation provisions into compliance with (state laws),” said Assistant City Attorney Darcy Vaughn at the council’s last meeting earlier this month. “It does this by reducing the amount of plants that people may cultivate for personal use indoors to six mature plants and 12 immature plants,” a number that is half of what is allowed currently within the city limits.
Vaughn said the proposed changes would also allow people to grow marijuana for personal use, not strictly for medical purposes.
“As of November 2016, every person in California could grow six cannabis plants for non-medical use,” said Council member Maureen Mulheren, who served on an ad-hoc committee that explored all the issues surrounding cannabis regulations with Mayor Jim Brown for the past two years. “So the intention of this ordinance is to clarify for everyone that your total number of plants, whether medical or otherwise, is six. And they have to be inside a secure, permitted structure. Any outdoor grow would be mitigated as they are now.”
“This is just a piece of the puzzle, and this piece actually protects the community,” said Brown.
However, resident Pinky Kushner said she and her neighbor did not feel protected from those breaking the rules, as “there are those of us who have gone to the police with nuisance complaints and we have gotten nowhere.
“If you’re going to clean up the ordinance, clean it up so that we are aided, and so that we know what we must do to get the enforcement process going,” Kushner continued. “It seems to me that you don’t have a code-enforcement person in place who can handle these complaints, nor do you have a mechanism where code-enforcement can get a warrant to count the plants.”
Another audience member representing the Ukiah Unified School District asked that the council make the new ordinance as restrictive as possible to reduce local children’s exposure to marijuana.
“The mayor is right in describing this as a puzzle, and (the school district) is realizing that every piece is going to have an impact on our schools and our students,” said Nicole Glentzer, assistant superintendent of UUSD, describing how students already come to classes smelling of marijuana not necessarily because they use it, but because it is being grown around them. “We would ask that you put any limitations you can on it to keep it as far away from our schools as possible.”
Brown responded by adding that protecting kids from growing up too close to marijuana was one of the reasons he recommended allowing it to be grown outdoors.
“If we push everyone growing pot inside their residence, their kids are going to smell like pot when they go to school,” said Brown. “If we put it outside in a secure structure, that is our best option. Prop. 64 is here folks; it’s not going away.
“What we have before us tonight is a little simple piece of the puzzle that I think helps our law enforcement,” Brown continued. “But the hard work is yet to come. When you start talking about zoning districts, manufacturing, distribution, transportation — that’s when it’s really gonna get ugly.
“I wish marijuana never existed; I wish it was never here,” Brown said. “I’m not a user; I’m not a grower. And while I appreciate everybody’s concerns, if you really don’t like marijuana, you’re a dime late and a dollar short, because it’s here.”
“I think there’s a misconception there will suddenly be an upswing in people cultivating non-medical cannabis in their houses, because I don’t believe that’s the case,” said Council member Maureen Mulheren. “This is simply cleanup of our current language. If people are into marijuana, they are already growing it. I don’t think we will see a huge number of people cultivating who were not already cultivating. We are not creating a free-for-all.”
“This is making it more restrictive than what we have right now,” said Vice-Mayor Kevin Doble, and the council agreed to have staff present the revised ordinance for consideration, and a possible vote, at its next meeting on Dec. 6.
