Pubdate: Wed, 30 Jul 2014
Source: Desert Sun, The (Palm Springs, CA)
Copyright: 2014 The Desert Sun
Contact:  http://www.desertsun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1112
Author: Blake Herzog

CATHEDRAL CITY OKS MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARIES

Cathedral City became the second Coachella Valley city to permit
marijuana dispensaries Tuesday with a 3-2 vote, that included an
amendment to allow three to open immediately, instead of two.

Councilmen Greg Pettis, and Sam Toles and Mayor Pro Tem Chuck Vasquez
voted in favor, with Mayor Kathy DeRosa and Councilman Stan Henry
voted no. The council deadlocked 2-2 on the issue at its July 9
meeting when Toles did not teleconference into the session as expected.

The ordinance, as presented earlier this month, permitted one
dispensary per 20,000 residents, or a cap of two total until the city
of approximately 52,000 reached 60,000 residents. Pettis' amendment
changing that to one per 15,000 residents was approved.

The council also unanimously approved putting a tax of up to 15
percent on all medical pot sales to a public vote this November.

Cathedral City banned pot shops in 2009 after extensive legal efforts
to shut one down. Palm Springs had been the only valley city to
legalize them; another proposal to do so is being considered in Desert
Hot Springs.

Cathedral City's new ordinance will become official 30 days after the
state-required second reading, which is scheduled for Aug. 13.

Via telephone, Toles apologized before the vote for not calling in at
the last meeting, without saying why he didn't.

"It was inexcusable. I was supposed to be here and I was not," he
said. "I know my colleagues voted to give me an excused absence, and
I'd like to change the record to reflect it as an unexcused absence."

All residents speaking in person at the meeting Tuesday said they
favor allowing dispensaries, with Art Gregoire displaying a
poster-size photograph of Dale Nelson, his partner's brother, who had
voiced his support of allowing dispensaries at a previous meeting.

For a patient with stage IV colon cancer, "it's not about getting high
but feeling less sick, and living a life as full as you can given the
cards that you're dealt," Gregoire said, reading a transcript of the
statement Nelson made at the March 2013 meeting.

At that time the council adopted a similar ordinance regulating
dispensaries which would take effect if the state Supreme Court ruled
cities could not ban them outright, but the court upheld cities' right
to do so the following month.

The regulations adopted Tuesday were nearly identical to the "backup"
law, aside from allowing one per 15,000 residents and another change
put forward by Pettis to reduce the distance requirement for
dispensaries from residential areas to 250 feet, from 600 feet.

Pettis said this would answer the concerns of Perez Road merchants
worried that all the dispensaries would cluster in a district where
they're trying to attract more diverse businesses. "This would open up
Ramon and part of Date Palm (Drive)," he said. The pot shops still
can't open within 250 feet of East Palm Canyon Drive.

DeRosa read an email she'd received objecting to dispensaries into the
record from Roslyn Holbrook, a resident who she said she'd never met.
"Let the people who want to use it for their so-called medical use
find it somewhere else," the note said, adding that society has become
too dependent on drugs of all kinds.

DeRosa added she's hoping for approval of a bill introduced in
Congress this week to remove strains of marijuana with a low
percentage of its psychoactive ingredient, THC, from the federal
controlled substances list.

The council passed the ballot measure seeking approval of the 15
percent tax without comment, but resident Valerie Schechter got
concerned when she asked after the vote if that would be charged on
top of city sales tax, and was told that it would.

"I have to say that's very high for medicine," she
said.

Vasquez said he hoped the vote would put to rest a debate which had
gotten volatile at times, with opponents attacking him on Facebook and
calling his church following his support of the dispensary ordinance
at the last meeting, despite his personal misgivings.

"Even those who are against it are saying, 'If it goes through, this
is what I'd like to see.' The community is coming together on this
issue," he said.  
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