At the April 15 meeting, after an hour of lively discussion on the topic of medical marijuana dispensaries, the City Council unanimously approved the following motion: “Approve the draft Ordinance 2014-002 as presented for ban of dispensaries including citation of most recent case discussed here. This includes the changing the title to read AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF JACKSONVILLE PROHIBITING THE ESTABLISHMENT AND OPERATION OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARIES IN CITY LIMITS AND DECLARING AN EMERGENCY; removing sections F and G from Article 1; removing Article 2 in its entirety, and renumbering the document.”

With the full council seated and city attorney Kurt Knudsen present, the matter of what to do about medical marijuana dispensaries was the only item on the agenda. In their information package, the council had been presented with two draft ordinance options to choose from: impose a moratorium on dispensaries through May, 2015 or enact and outright ban with no time limit. Based on recent case law as well as on advice from the League of Oregon Cities and the City Attorney, Council ultimately voted for the “ban” option. Jacksonville joins all cities in Jackson County except for Ashland in either enacting a moratorium or ban. Under a statewide statute, all cities were required to make a decision on the matter by May 1.

On a related matter, the council also weighed-in on a portion of the draft, namely section #2 that would regulate the growing of medical marijuana outdoors. Presently, state law gives medical marijuana card holders the right to grow a limited number of plants indoors and for certain caregivers to do so for patients. After much debate, Council decided to drop all language from the draft ordinance regulating outdoor grows, choosing instead to let Jacksonville’s Municipal Code govern the issue. It was noted that in almost all complaints against outdoor grows, odor and light pollution are the named “nuisances.” In May or June, the council will again take up the issue of where medical marijuana may or may not be grown. For now at least, the debate over permitting medical marijuana dispensaries in Jacksonville has been settled.

Posted April 16, 2014