Problems in Pomona

[dropcap class=”kp-dropcap”]C[/dropcap]ommunities will go to great lengths to impede cannabis-related bills from falling into the hands of voters on the election ballot. According to an attorney, Pomona city officials willfully stalled Pomona Regulate Cannabis Act of 2018 from reaching the Nov. 6 ballot, a bill that would allow cannabis businesses in the city.

Roger Jon Diamond, Esq. is currently representing Pomona resident Jacqueline Dilley. Dilley and Andrea Villegas recently pushed Pomona Regulate Cannabis Act of 2018 that would overturn Pomona’s current ban on commercial cannabis activities. The ban, Ordinance No. 2017 – 4241, was imposed on Nov. 6, 2017.

“The city of Pomona deliberately subverted the right of the people to vote on Nov. 6, 2018. Whether they want to ban it or lift it, the city politicians are depriving the voters of Pomona with an opportunity to vote on the issue. It’s deliberate.”

Pomona Regulate Cannabis Act of 2018 would amend Pomona’s zoning code to accommodate cannabis businesses in two designated areas called the “safety access cannabis” zones in business and scattered industrial areas of the city. But Diamond believes that a proper and timely course of action wasn’t taken by city leaders.

“The city of Pomona deliberately subverted the right of the people to vote on Nov.6, 2018,” Diamond told CULTURE. “Whether they want to ban it or lift it, the city politicians are depriving the voters of Pomona with an opportunity to vote on the issue. It’s deliberate.” Diamond is a nationally recognized expert in criminal law, and he has represented cannabis-related clients in the past.

The Pomona City Council voted to direct staff to analyze the full impact of the Pomona Regulate Cannabis Act of 2018, which conveniently pushed the initiative past the Aug. 10 deadline, thus reducing its chances of making the November ballot. Diamond responded with 15-page petition to Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James Chalfant, which he filed three days following the vote. Assistant City Attorney Andrew Jared, however, argued that Pomona officials didn’t do anything wrong.

“City council doesn’t meet until Sept. 10,” Diamond said. “The city did two major things to delay measure until after Nov. 6. They miscounted the signatures. The city clerk miscounted them. There were enough signatures to qualify the measure for the ballot. The city clerk should have made that determination, but didn’t. So there had to be a recount by the county registrar of voters. The county registrar of voters determined that there were enough signatures.” In other words, a lot of unnecessary delays took place.

Each of the delays made the initiative less likely to make it onto the Nov. 6 ballot. Although Pomona Regulate Cannabis Act of 2018’s language wasn’t perfect, many of the setbacks didn’t need to take place.

“Secondly, when the matter went before the registrar of voters, I told the city that we’d pay for the counting of the signatures to speed up the process, and we’d volunteered to do that because the city deliberately refused to ask the registrar of voters to speed up the counting process,” he said. “The city had both the authority and the right to ask for that. But the city refused to make that request.”

Other obstacles stood in the way, such as an Aug. 1 open letter from the Downtown Pomona Owners Association. Neighboring business owners said “not in my neighborhood,” regarding cannabis businesses.

Although it’s unlikely that the bill will make it, Dilley and Diamond are not giving up on getting the Pomona Regulate Cannabis Act of 2018 onto the Nov. 6 ballot or they will revisit it in the near future.

For some background, Diamond was successful last year after a California Supreme Court ruling was made when he and his client sued the city of Upland for $180,000 in legal fees after the Upland City Council imposed similar unnecessary delays to its cannabis initiative. The same results could happen in Pomona.