Pubdate: Thu, 26 Dec 2013
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2013 The New York Times Company
Contact: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/lettertoeditor.html
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Norimitsu Onishi

IN CALIFORNIA, A MAYOR'S RISE IS A SIGN OF THE TIMES

SEBASTOPOL, Calif. - When Robert Jacob ran for the City Council here
last year, he had already made the list of "Forty Under 40 of 2012" in
a local business magazine. So it was to be expected that his business
gave him face recognition among voters on the campaign trail, many of
whom greeted him by exclaiming, "You're the pot guy!"

A founder of Sebastopol's lone dispensary for medical marijuana, Peace
in Medicine, and a strong advocate of its use, Mr. Jacob far outraised
and outspent his rivals by running the most expensive campaign in
Sebastopol's history. He won and quickly became vice mayor but was not
done.

This month, Mr. Jacob, 36, was chosen as mayor by the City Council -
the first person from the medical marijuana industry to become mayor
of an American city, according to cannabis advocates.

The selection spoke to the wider social acceptance of marijuana,
medical or otherwise, in the United States, one year after Colorado
and Washington voted to become the first two states to legalize its
recreational use. That it happened in Sebastopol, a city in Sonoma
County that retains its hippie past despite the gentrification in
recent years that has made it known more for its pinot noir than its
traditional Gravenstein apples, was hardly a surprise.

Mr. Jacob's political ascendancy also points to the marijuana
industry's growing economic power, and it hints at what may lie ahead
in Colorado and Washington. In its list of "Forty Under 40," The North
Bay Business Journal listed Mr. Jacob alongside people from the food,
wine, tech, finance and other more conventional sectors. In
Sebastopol, a city of 7,400 people an hour north of San Francisco, his
medical marijuana dispensary was the 14th-biggest business in 2012,
funneling $46,400 in taxes to the city.

Still, the federal government regards any use of marijuana as illegal.
What is more, in the last couple of years, United States attorneys
have shut down hundreds of dispensaries across California after
sending warning letters to operators, landlords and local officials
who passed or put into effect ordinances regulating medical marijuana
businesses in their municipalities. In the letters, the prosecutors,
working with the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Internal
Revenue Service, threatened the recipients with criminal charges and
the seizure of assets.

So as both the mayor and a medical marijuana businessman, Mr. Jacob
could be seen as a symbol of how federal laws lag behind the times, or
he could become an inviting target.

While joking that talking about his dispensary's position in relation
to federal law "makes me sweat," Mr. Jacob said he felt confident
about its legal status. City officials said that no one associated
with Mr. Jacob's dispensary or in the city's government had received a
warning letter from the federal authorities.

"We don't push the envelope," Mr. Jacob said. "We really operate
within a medicinal perspective, from our name to our advertising to
the way we display our medicine to the way we treat each individual
patient's needs when they walk through the door. We're an organization
that respects the intent of cannabis as medicine."

The dispensary, which opened in 2007, is in a nondescript gray,
two-story building on one of the city's main avenues. Nothing outside
indicates the nature of its business. Inside, Peace in Medicine
cultivates the atmosphere of a clinic or spa, with works from local
artists on its walls, a world away from the clublike ambience and
images of fast cars, Bob Marley and bikini-clad women found in many
other dispensaries.

Lawrence McLaughlin, the city attorney and manager, said the thought
that the mayor was engaged in an activity considered illegal under
federal law was "not a worry at this point for me." He added, "I can
see the trend where things are going in the United States over all
regardless of who's in power in Washington, being that marijuana use
is being legalized in more and more states."

A resident of Sebastopol since 2004, Mr. Jacob is a relative newcomer.
He grew up in Rodeo, in the East Bay, the son of immigrants, his
father from Mexico and his mother from Iraq. He moved with his family
to the Central Valley, but uncomfortable in the area's conservative
culture because he was gay, he said, at 15 he decamped to San
Francisco, where he first lived in a homeless shelter for youths. In
San Francisco, Mr. Jacob went to high school and also worked for
several social services groups, helping victims of domestic violence
and H.I.V.-positive youths.

After moving here, Mr. Jacob said he found many people "hiding in
their homes and basement and cabins, cultivating cannabis," which
inspired him and a handful of other business partners to take their
first anxious steps toward opening the dispensary.

"We went to a pay phone and I called the Police Department," Mr. Jacob
recalled. "I said: 'Hi, I'm Robert. I am a medical marijuana patient,
and I want to grow cannabis in Sebastopol. Can you tell me what the
rules are?' "

A police officer explained California's regulations to him. "Then we
all got into the car and drove away from the pay phone as fast as
possible," he said. "We were afraid that they were going to come down
and get us."

The dispensary found a receptive community here. Sebastopol's
population has grown older and wealthier in recent decades, but its
politics are rooted on the left.

Green Party candidates have made it to the City Council. In the past
year, the Council has passed ordinances requiring solar power on new
homes and commercial buildings, as well as restricting drive-through
businesses and chain stores. Its divisions, said Sarah Glade Gurney, a
council member and former mayor, are divisions inside the left.

"People like to argue with the Greens, but that doesn't mean they
aren't green themselves," she said.

As for Mr. Jacob, who was unanimously chosen by the Council to be
mayor, he said that he wants to be known for more than being the first
medical marijuana insider to become mayor of an American city.

Referring to his management experience overseeing 45 employees at
Peace in Medicine, he said he would work toward uniting the City
Council, which had been divided in recent years over development
projects, including a CVS pharmacy. Having supported the new
restrictions on businesses, he said that he wants to preserve
Sebastopol's small-town charm.

"There's been a lot about me being the marijuana mayor," Mr. Jacob
told a gathering at a Christmas luncheon at the Fire Department.

"I'm doing everything I can in many ways to change that perspective.
And if that means I've got to put on dress shoes that hurt my feet and
a tie every day, and wear a nice suit and make sure it's pressed and
pay for a dry cleaner, I'm going to do that."  
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