The commission meets at 6 p.m. in the council chambers at Clearlake City Hall, 14050 Olympic Drive.
The 21-page proposed ordinance, the crafting of which has been under way for several months, includes a citywide limit on dispensaries – three – and limits the dispensaries to having a maximum membership of 200, and a maximum sales area of 1,200 square feet.
Dispensaries also would be limited to the C4 commercial zoning, which is where heavy service and light industrial are relegated. The establishments also could not be located within 1,500 feet of schools, preschools, day care centers, recreation and youth centers, public libraries and parks, churches or other medical marijuana dispensaries.
The Clearlake City Council and the Clearlake Planning Commission held a special workshop on medical marijuana dispensaries on Nov. 5, and discussed some of the document's key points. Considerable public comment offered at that meeting opposed many of the document's stringent regulations.
At the end of that meeting, the council voted to impose a temporary moratorium on the establishments while the ordinance was finished, as Lake County News has reported.
City Administrator Dale Neiman – who along with Police Chief Allan McClain worked extensively on the document – recommended in his staff report to the commission that commissioners review a table summarizing the key elements and, if necessary, wait until a following meeting to review the draft ordinance itself and make any necessary modifications.
Lower Lake attorney Ron Green, who along with retired District 1 Supervisor Ed Robey has offered input on the county's proposed guidelines for medical marijuana dispensaries and its temporary moratorium, is critical of the proposed ordinance.
“I've been studying the ordinance carefully, and comparing it to others, and it appears that the police chief took the worst and most burdensome provisions from the worst ordinances in the state and made them worse and more onerous,” he told Lake County News on Monday.
Green also represents Liz Byrd of Lakeside Herbal Solutions, whose business license the city attempted to revoke late last year.
Byrd has since applied to have her dispensary's business license renewed, but Neiman has turned her down, so she is appealing that decision. That matter still has yet to reach a final conclusion.
Other items on the Clearlake Planning Commission's agenda include a public hearing on the abandonment of a portion of the right-of-way at 15885 Dam Road Extension, proposed by Superior Acquisitions, and the continuation of a public hearing to consider the approval of a mitigated negative declaration of an an environmental impact report and a use permit application for a mobile home park James Carroll is proposing at 5755 Old Highway 53.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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