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Plymouth Extends Emergency Marijuana Ban by 10 Months |
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Wednesday, 16 December 2009 |
 Amador County – The Plymouth City Council last Thursday voted to extend an emergency ordinance for 10 months to prohibit the establishment of a medical marijuana dispensary in the city. City Attorney Steven Rudolph urged the council to extend the emergency, temporary ordinance for 10 months and 15 days, as the city can await results of some court cases that are focusing on medical marijuana laws throughout cities in the state. The council approved a 45-day prohibition on November 12th, and the attorney last week urged a longer ban. The council opened a public hearing on the issue. Sutter Creek resident Robert Allen spoke in favor the use of medical marijuana, saying his family “extended my mother’s life for 2 years with medical marijuana” and “it was a medical miracle.” Allen said: “I would like to urge you as a city to look at it as a future source of revenue.” He said the current “hands off” urging of the Obama administration was a prefect condition for medical marijuana because it “becomes locally governed.” Maria Nunez Simon said she knows a lot of people in town who have licenses for medical marijuana. Councilman Jon Colburn said he was contacted by one person who said medical marijuana helped her husband quite a bit. Rudolph told the council that staff would study city zoning issues and the city to look for appropriate locations suitable for medical marijuana dispensaries. He also said several lawsuits are pending across the state. Rudolph said one suit is seeking a ruling on “whether cities can adopt a total ban on medical marijuana dispensaries.” He said “a large number of cities have adopted total bans.” Colburn said he did not want to waste any more staff money on studies until the lawsuits were resolved. Vice Mayor Greg Baldwin agreed, saying they should table it. Baldwin said: “I’m guessing this is going to jump up to the Supreme Court level,” and he said “we could have a different president in 3 years.” City Manager Dixon Flynn said: “I think we’ve bought ourselves some time until we find out what the courts are going to do.” The city last month put in place the ban. It also faces the fact that its zones for medical pot dispensaries (industrial and light industrial areas) were removed from city limits by the newly adopted city General Plan. Story by Jim Reece
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