Santa Maria Sun / News

Let's talk about pot

BY AMY ASMAN

Guadalupe City Council members planned to hold a public meeting March 9 to discuss the possibility of placing a permanent ban on opening medical marijuana dispensaries within city limits.

The council had yet to take a permanent stand against dispensaries that open up shop in their town. It did, however, place an almost one-year moratorium on the facilities, beginning in May 2009. The moratorium is set to expire in May of this year, according to city records.

The moratorium came just hours after Santa Maria resident and former Guadalupe City Planning Commissioner George Alvarez applied for a medical marijuana dispensary business license.

In a May 2009 interview with the Sun, Alvarez said his mission was about compassion for the sick, not about the money.

“I am willing to spend the time and effort to see if it’s doable, if it will serve the population that really needs it,” he said then. “I want to do everything I can to give them some human dignity before they die and to relieve any pain they might suffer from accidents, Agent Orange, or anything that a doctor says that [marijuana] will relieve.”

Nonetheless, the council unanimously voted 4-0, with Mayor Lupe Alvarez absent, to establish an emergency moratorium, which then gave way to a 10-month long measure.

“I think that’s an indication in itself of what might happen,” Mayor Alvarez recently told the Sun.

“I don’t think the town is big enough to support a business like that, first of all,” he continued. “And we’re trying to clean up our image and move in the right direction as more of a tourist destination and family-oriented town.”

Having pot dispensaries, he said, would not go along with that image.

“I’m not denying that there are people out there who need [medical marijuana],” Alvarez explained, adding that dispensaries aren’t the best way to distribute the drug.

“What about pharmacies?” he said. “We already have pharmacies. Why don’t we get state or federal approval to allow pharmacies to [distribute it]? They already have the regulations, the training, and the licensing to dispense drugs. And that’s what it is—a drug.”

On Feb. 16, the Guadalupe Planning Commission voted 3-1 to send a draft ordinance to the City Council without a recommendation. Only Commissioner Carl Kraemer voted in favor of the draft