The Process of Progress: San Diego’s continuing battle for medical cannabis

he latest chapter in the
ongoing saga of the San Diego medical cannabis scene is best summed up in four
little letters: CEQA. The California Environmental Quality Act was intended to
do just what its name states: To ensure the quality of the environment in
California. Unfortunately, it has become the latest political pawn in a game
that we have all long since grown tired of. Some believe that it is the
powers-that-be who have erected this hurdle, but others maintain that
competitors with cash to spare are the ones who have created this unnecessary
hurdle. Here are the facts, as we know them.

On
Tuesday, January 13, San Diego City Council rejected all 11 appeals of a city
staff finding that permit applications to operate legal medical cannabis
collectives in San Diego are
exempt from provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act.

The
council’s unanimous action will allow the projects to move ahead in the
application process for conditional use permits under rules that were adopted
last year, but for various reasons, only a few of them are likely to be
granted. In processing the applications, officials with the city’s Development Services Department
found that environmental
regulations do not apply in the case of the dispensaries, due to the
fact that they will only be making minor modifications to existing buildings.

In
a technicality, the appeals were only on the CEQA finding, not the actual
conditional use permits.

The
applicants in question aim to operate shops at 7128 Miramar Road in Mira Mesa,
4645 De Soto St. in Pacific Beach, 3571 Pacific Highway in Middletown; in the
Stockton neighborhood at 3433 Pickwick St. and 3385 Sunrise St., and in the Midway
District at 3486 Kurtz St., 3485 Noell St., 3225 Bean St., and 3421, 3430 and
3515 Hancock St.

Their
permit applications will now go on to a city hearing officer, who will decide
whether or not to approve the projects. They face many familiar roadblocks,
including a rule that limits the number of dispensaries to only four per
council district, and six applicants are currently vying for locations in the
Midway area.

Adding
to the stiff competition, dispensaries are not allowed to operate within 1,000
feet of each other.

“I
have approximately 18 applications in council District 2, and you’re correct,
only four will be approved,” Edith Gutierrez, who is overseeing the
permitting process for the city’s Development Services Department, told
Councilman Todd Gloria, who represents the area. “So a lot of these
[permits] today will never get approved, because applications ahead of them,
[if] they do get approved, it will cancel their application out.”

She
said an applicant whose CEQA exemption was not appealed is further along in the
process, and if that permit is approved, five of the ones addressed today will
be out of luck because they would be within 1,000 feet.

Lawyers
for some applicants claimed that most of the appeals were filed by competitors
who wanted to move ahead in the line for permits, which Gloria called a
“fair point” that should be addressed.

However,
the only one to file an appeal who actually spoke to the council was
notoriously anti-cannabis crusader Scott Chipman, “Pot shops are not the
kind of businesses we need in San Diego,” Chipman said. “They attract
crime, [and] send the wrong messages to our children. We need to be considering
San Diego as a family-friendly tourist, not a drug tourist, destination.”
Oh Scott, may we never grow weary of your tireless, inane rhetoric.
Pathetically, other speakers made similar false claims about the nature of
medical cannabis and its safety. A lie will never become the truth, and the
truth is that cannabis is healing, it is safe and it should be legal.