Groups try to smoke out proposed rules on pot clubs in San Jose - San Jose Mercury News

Groups try to smoke out proposed rules on pot clubs in San Jose - San Jose Mercury News


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Groups try to smoke out proposed rules on pot clubs in San Jose

By Stephen Baxter

sbaxter@community-newspapers.com
Posted: 06/10/2010 08:00:29 PM PDT
Updated: 06/10/2010 08:00:29 PM PDT

Proposed new rules on pot clubs in San Jose drew fire from several angles at a packed meeting at San Jose City Hall on June 7, including a few threats of lawsuits from medical marijuana advocates.

Working closely with San Jose police, Mayor Chuck Reed, Vice Mayor Judy Chirco and Councilman Pete Constant drafted a proposal that would limit the number of pot collectives in the city to 10. All marijuana would have to be grown at the collectives, which would have to operate as nonprofit groups, and patients would have to be San Jose residents who could only join one collective.

There are more than 30 pot clubs in San Jose now, and they exist in a complex web of court rulings and state and federal law. The mayor's proposal and a separate proposal written by Councilman Pierluigi Oliverio attempt to regulate the placement and number of cannabis clubs, and potentially tax them for city revenue. The meeting was held to gather input for San Jose's likely June 22 urgency ordinance on the clubs.

Drawing on experience from other California cities and several Los Angeles lawsuits, attorneys from several patient advocate groups panned the mayor's proposal. Residency restrictions on clubs are illegal; sales of medicinal marijuana are legal, and a cap on the number of clubs is "laughable" because there are 55,000 cannabis patients in San Jose, said Paul Stewart, an attorney and director of public policy for the MC3 group of San Jose cannabis clubs.

"I'm
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disappointed; I'm very disappointed," Stewart said of the proposal.

Lauren Vazquez, director of the Silicon Valley chapter of Americans for Safe Access, was more specific: "If you pass this urgency ordinance, expect to get sued."

Others at the meeting pleaded with the city to protect children from marijuana users with questionable ailments who cause trouble outside pot clubs.

More than five parents with children at the Alphabet Soup Preschool in West San Jose said clubs only should be allowed at least 1,000 feet from schools and preschools. Alphabet Soup shares a parking lot with a pot club, and parents have seen club members urinate in the parking lot. Parents also fear that marijuana patients who make several trips a day to the shop are driving under the influence near the preschool.

Nearly all medical marijuana supporters at the meeting said they support mandatory distances from schools, but some said there should be exceptions for railroad crossings, walls and such.

Councilman Oliverio's March 29 proposal, which differs from the mayor's, would make the "primary area" for clubs in industrial areas—which would force out shops such as the San Jose Patients Group at 824 The Alameda.

Public meetings

June 22: City council to review a potential urgency ordinance on regulating cannabis clubs. 1:30 p.m., council chambers, 200 E. Santa Clara St.
July 20: Community outreach meeting on a regular law on cannabis clubs. 6 to 8 p.m., Roosevelt Community Center, 901 E. Santa Clara St.
Aug. 3: Scheduled first reading of regular law. 1:30 p.m., council chambers, 200 E. Santa Clara St.
Aug. 17: Scheduled second reading of law, council chambers.
Sept. 17: Regular law in effect.



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