For the third time in four years, a medical marijuana facility has been proposed in San Luis Obispo County. But whether it will make it past the county planning commission is anyone’s guess.
On May 25, Grover Beach resident Tammy Murray applied with the county’s Department of Planning and Building to open a facility in unincorporated Oceano, she said, because despite several attempts by others, local qualified patients by and large remain without a place to get their medicine.
According to Murray’s minor use permit application, the 5,500-square-foot facility would be located in an industrial area on the 1400 block of South Fourth Street in northern Oceano, fitted with security cameras and staffed by a full-time guard.
Perhaps fittingly, escrow closed on the property April 20.
Murray, who served from 1987 to 1991 as a load master for the U.S. Air Force, moved to Grover Beach in late 2009. She traveled the world while serving her country, she said, and followed that with various careers in finance and public education before opening Compassionate Cannabis Information Center, Inc. in Goshen, a small town north of Bakersfield, in 2008.
Recent incidents involving medical marijuana in SLO County didn’t deter Murray from pursuing a facility here, but rather inspired her—despite the fact that a huge Narcotics Task Force operation in January 2011 led to the arrests of 12 local mobile delivery collective members who claimed to have been following the law.
Murray said she’s used her experience at the Goshen club to emphasize the benefits of medicinal cannabis to veterans suffering from painful rehabilitation and post-traumatic stress disorder, the symptoms of which she said can be greatly reduced by the effects of marijuana when other treatments have failed.
“The veterans I’ve spoken to locally all have given me the thumbs up on this,” Murray said.
The club’s marijuana would be provided on a consignment basis from local qualified farmers, a business model that worked for the Goshen location—a club that has stayed “legitimate,” while others in the area have been shut down, according to Murray.
“It is a challenge [to run a club] because of all the compliance issues, but I pay my taxes every month, make sure the reports are done, manage all the people on my staff, and I always make sure we’re being diligent,” Murray said. “I run a pretty
tight ship.”
Should Murray’s proposal get off the ground, she will likely have an uphill battle ahead of her. In 2007, the county board of supervisors voted to allow medical marijuana dispensaries within county territory, but no project has ever been approved.
County code dictates that dispensaries can’t be located within central business districts, nor may they operate within 1,000 feet of schools or other locations oriented toward minors.
Given the legal uncertainty surrounding safe access laws, many SLO County cities have either voted to ban dispensaries within their limits or have declared they just aren’t interested. That’s why Murray is pursuing her club in unincorporated territory; the county has already said it allows them, she said.
In 2010, despite what he called “careful research,” Bob Brody, a Los Angeles businessman and then-qualified marijuana patient, had a similar proposal for Nipomo shot down based on the location’s proximity to a part-time gymnastics studio, which Brody wasn’t aware existed at the time. Though the studio only operated a few hours a day, it did so 92 (aerial) feet from his proposed dispensary’s door.
The planning commission turned down Brody’s proposal by a slim 3-2 vote. He then appealed the decision to the board of supervisors, who followed suit, encouraged by the vocal citizenry and sheriff’s department personnel who turned out to decry the project.
“The whole thing, I would say, was a great experience, even if I’m disappointed at how it turned out,” Brody told the Sun. “All the time and money spent on traveling, on planning, and all the preparations for security—but life goes on.”
Brody said he was not familiar with Murray’s Oceano proposal, but did offer some advice based on his experience.
“Research the location very carefully, and get as many people in the community on your side to speak in support as possible, because the other side will, and [community leaders] make decisions based on that,” Brody said. “Unfortunately, not many people who are patients and are in pain really want to speak up and announce that they use medicinal marijuana. They prefer to stay in the closet about it, and you can’t really blame them, I guess.”
A similar proposal for Templeton in 2007 by Atascadero resident and local businessman Kent Connella was also denied. Though Connella declined to be interviewed for this article, he told the Sun the process was “very frustrating.”
Senior County Planner Bill Robeson, who was assigned to Connella and Brody’s applications—and now Murray’s—told the Sun that from the county’s perspective, there are straightforward regulations in place for every application.
“They’re looked at on a case-by-case basis,” Robeson said.
Robeson observed, however, that much of the barrier to seeing a project come to fruition remains public outcry from residents who don’t want to see a medical marijuana facility in their own backyard.
Critics of brick-and-mortar marijuana dispensaries claim they attract an unwanted clientele from outside of the county, and encourage crime. Others fear a reccurence of what happened in Morro Bay in 2007, when federal drug enforcement agents raided Central Coast Compassionate Caregivers, after an investigation by then-SLO County Sheriff Pat Hedges.
However, Robeson said that during consideration of the past projects, he spoke with officials from other jurisdictions to see whether claims that dispensaries bring with them an increase in crime have merit.
“During the Templeton and Nipomo applications, I had a number of conversations with Santa Barbara city staff—they have quite a few [dispensaries]—and from what I learned, they were being run correctly,” Robeson said, adding he even spoke with the city’s police chief, who reported there weren’t any incidents at that time, nor threats from the feds.
“It’s just ridiculous. All the facts get misconstrued, like when you tell a joke down the line—by the time it gets back to you it’s all jumbled,” Brody said of alleged misinformation surrounding dispensaries.
Murray said she’s reached out to neighbors of the Oceano building, and law enforcement officials such as Sheriff Ian Parkinson, to whom she wrote a letter in January. Parkinson, elected in late 2010, hasn’t been faced with a proposed medical marijuana facility in
his term.
“I feel that Parkinson has compassion in his heart and is a very keen leader who listens,” she said. “I think there were other leaders who didn’t want to listen, who only saw things in black and white, and medical marijuana is in this gray area right now.”
Following a decision from the Department of Planning and Building, Murray’s proposed project could go before the county planning commission, where public testimony could be taken on the matter. The commission could accept, reject, or modify the project. Any way it plays out, interested parties could then file an appeal, which would be heard by the board of supervisors.
“I feel confident that, as long as we stay within the guidelines of the county ordinance, I don’t see how I can be denied,” Murray said. m
Staff Writer Matt Fountain can be reached at mfountain@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Aug 18-25, 2011.