CALIFORNIA MARIJUANA GROWERS FACE NEW CROP OF LOCAL BAN

When the California legislature passed the state's first comprehensive medical marijuana regulations in September, pot
advocates hoped the move heralded a new era of trust in their

often-tumultuous relationship with wary local officials and
police.

So far, it hasn't turned out that way.

Facing what appears to be a rapidly closing window for action,
dozens of cities and counties from across California are racing
to enact new bans on marijuana-growing. Some apply only to
commercial cultivation, both indoor and outdoor, but many
would also prohibit personal pot gardens that have been legal
— or at least overlooked — for 19 years.


"Any other industry that created four months of seasonal labor
and hundreds of thousands of jobs...we would be giving tax
breaks to those businesses," medical marijuana dispensary
owner Robert Jacob, a member of the Sebastopol City Council
who has been fighting pot-growing bans proposed in Sonoma
County.


At issue is a paragraph in the 70-page framework approved in
the closing hours of the legislative session that would give the
state alone authority to license growers in jurisdictions that do
not have laws on the books by March 1 specifically authorizing
or outlawing cultivation.


Lawmakers involved in crafting the package say the deadline
ended up by mistake in the final compromise regulations.
Assemblyman Jim Wood, a Democrat who represents
California's prime pot-growing region, included it in earlier
versions as a way to free local governments from a
responsibility they might not want, spokeswoman Liz Snow said.


"It was a way to try to make it clearer in terms of, 'OK, local
jurisdictions. If you want to act, you should be thinking about it,
working on it now. Otherwise, we will all defer to the state,'"
Snow said.


Even before Gov. Jersey Brown  signed the regulations, which
create the first statewide licensing and operating rules for
California's sprawling medical marijuana industry, Wood
announced he would introduce an emergency bill this month
deleting the March 1 deadline.


The League of California Cities and the California Association of
Police Chiefs, while supporting the fix, nonetheless have
advised their members to enact cultivation bans ahead of the
original cutoff date as a precaution to preserve local control.
The two groups fought hard last year for provisions stating that
to be eligible for licenses the state expects to start issuing in
about two years, anyone involved in the commercial medical
marijuana trade must first obtain a local operating permit.


Tim Cromartie, a lobbyist with the League of California Cities,
said the guidance to ban all medical marijuana growing outright
stemmed from the conclusion that the short time frame did not
give local officials enough time to draft, debate and refine their
own cultivation rules.


"Most cities, their staff have no clue how to begin writing one
of these ordinances. Their first thought is, 'Don't the feds
prohibit this? How can we do this?'" Cromartie said. "We know
of jurisdictions that didn't want to have to ban, but they did it
under the point of a gun."


With new proposals being introduced and voted on almost
daily, no one knows yet how many of California's 58 counties
and 482 cities have taken the league's advice.
The California branch of the National Organization for the Repeal
of Marijuana Laws, or NORML, which has been monitoring what
it's termed "the banapalooza," said more than 160 jurisdictions
either have passed or introduced legislation to outlaw only
commercial cultivation or both commercial and personal
growing.


The crackdown has been a source of frustration for veteran pot
farmers who hoped the new state regulations would bring
clarity to their gray corner of the medical marijuana industry and
instead find themselves "recriminalized," said Hezekiah Allen,
executive director of the newly formed California Growers
Association.


Unless the local bans are lifted or modified, they would make
medical marijuana growers in those areas automatically
ineligible for the potentially lucrative and limited number of
agriculture licenses the state expects to start issuing in 2018.
"Certainly we have been disappointed with the League of Cities,
how they have chosen to proceed," Allen said. "A lot of the
jurisdictions had a predisposition to ban, and the March 1
deadline unfortunately gave them cover to ban."