City Attorney Steve Quintanilla said Monday he's requesting the delay because the city of Anaheim is appealing the court decision that led city officials to believe they might be forced to allow at least some dispensaries to operate there.
He knew this was a possibility, but, “at the last minute, they filed the papers which let me know they were serious about it.”
The council also plans a special meeting for 1 p.m. Dec. 14 so the council can vote on whether to extend a moratorium on dispensaries that is set to expire the next day.
Quintanilla said he will recommend a yearlong moratorium. The council unanimously approved three previous requests to delay the discussion from Quintanilla.
Rick Pantele, a Rancho Mirage resident and cancer survivor who uses medical marijuana under the state's voter-approved law, said he isn't surprised leaders might put the issue off further, given their pragmatic approach to the issue up to this point.
“The reality is the city attorney said in the last meeting that they're not for medical marijuana in Rancho Mirage; the only reason they're looking at it is they don't get sued,” he said.
Quintanilla said it could happen anyway, coming from a dispensary that opened in Rancho Mirage earlier this year but shut down for the moratorium. Two others want to open in the city as well.
“I guess they're getting impatient, so they have threatened to sue,” he said, though no suit had been filed as of Monday.
Jeff Lake, the attorney for the dispensaries, didn't return calls seeking comment.
Until the council vote was first delayed Oct. 21, the city appeared to be on a fast track to becoming the second Coachella Valley city, after Palm Springs, to allow some dispensaries.
It had never adopted an outright ban that the other seven cities had adopted. So staff scrambled to put together dispensary regulations when one opened in the city after getting turned down for a business permit.
A state court of appeals had recently ruled Anaheim could not use federal laws against marijuana use as the basis to ban medical dispensaries.
This led leaders to believe the city would be forced to allow some to operate in Rancho Mirage.
But the momentum in legislative and court decisions now seems to be going the other way, with Anaheim's appeal supported by a number of other cities and Los Angeles and Orange counties banning dispensaries in unincorporated areas.
Public opposition to medical marijuana has been minimal in Rancho Mirage, but appears to be growing in other parts of California, Mayor Richard Kite said.
“There seems to be more of a concern about the lawful dispensaries currently serving those cities and some of the activities surrounding them,” he said.
Another factor in the lack of public opposition is the absence of public testimony at the last two council meetings.
Kite said there will be a public hearing on Dec. 14. Quintanilla said residents also can speak Thursday, but judges reviewing new laws only look at the minutes from meetings where votes were taken.
Source: The Desert Sun
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