NEWS: Medical marijuana approved in Napa

The Napa City Council unanimously adopted an ordinance Tuesday night allowing medical marijuana to be grown and sold within the city limits.

After seven months of hearings dominated by passionate testimonials about the medicinal benefits of pot, council said it was time for Napa to offer this to its residents.

It could take the rest of the year before the city holds a competition and selects a non-profit group to apply for the city’s first cannabis dispensary permit, officials said.

The selected applicant would then apply for a use permit, with public hearings in front of the Planning Commission and council, a process that could take another six months, planners said.

Mayor Jill Techel said a majority of Napans supported medical marijuana. When voters statewide approved an initiative legalizing cannabis for medical uses in 1996, some 60 percent of local residents voted yes, she said.

“We feel voters have voted and said they want a safe place for care,” Techel said. Napa’s ordinance is loaded with security requirements so a clinic does not become a community nuisance, she said.

Councilman Pete Mott said Napa had written a model ordinance better than Sebastopol’s, often cited as the gold standard for assuring a well-run clinic.

The city will permit only one clinic in the first year, with the possibility of one more in the second year if there is a need. Membership in the first clinic will be limited to 10 percent of the city’s population, or almost 8,000 people. City residency will not be a requirement for service.

Marijuana dispensaries will be allowed in certain office and light industrial zones, but not within 500 feet of schools, parks and other areas where youths gather.

To buy medical pot, a patient would have to have an authorization written by a medical doctor.

The city’s ordinance allows individuals to devote up to 25 square feet in their homes for growing medical pot. The non-profit group is expected to also grow plants collectively in a warehouse in an industrial zone.

The applicant chosen to apply for a use permit will have every aspect of their operation scrutinized, including criminal background checks, security procedures and guarantees that most revenues get plowed back into the business, officials said.

An applicant that offered to donate profits to community groups would likely be favored over one that did not, council members said.

Tuesday’s public hearing lasted 30 minutes, with all but two of a dozen speakers endorsing the city’s medical marijuana ordinance.

The other four cities in the Napa Valley have all imposed moratoriums on pot clinics or outright banned them.

Source: Nappa Valley Register