THE ARTICLE HAS BEEN UPDATED WITH A CLARIFIED STATEMENT BY THE CDD DIRECTOR.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – A Lake County Planning Commission discussion on medical marijuana dispensaries that was preempted by a bomb threat late last month has been rescheduled for this week, with the commission moving from the courthouse to the Lake County Jail cafeteria.
The meeting will begin at 9 a.m. Wednesday, May 11, at the Hill Road Correctional Facility's main cafeteria building, located at 4913 Helbush Drive in Lakeport.
The commission is set to discuss a proposed ordinance that will amend the Lake County Zoning Ordinance to add regulations covering medical marijuana dispensaries.
Among other conditions, the document would limit the number of dispensaries in the county to nine – there are currently about a dozen around Lake County – and require that they be located in service commercial, commercial/manufacturing or heavy industrial zoning districts.
On April 28, when the commission originally was to have discussed the ordinance at 10 a.m. that day, a bomb threat ended up delaying the discussion.
Community Development Director Rick Coel said the commission had just finished its first item and was taking a break before the dispensaries discussion when they were told to evacuate about 20 minutes before the hearing was to have started.
The Lake County Sheriff's Office said a threat from an as-yet unidentified male caller had been phoned in to the County Counsel's Office at about 9:15 a.m. that day.
The man, who had reportedly sounded angry, said, “Don't mess with the marijuana users,” and warned that a bomb had been placed in the courthouse and was set to go off at 10:30 a.m. He reportedly also said, “Don't **** with us” before hanging up, the sheriff's office reported.
The building was evacuated and a bomb dog and handlers from Travis Air Force Base were called in to search for a bomb, which they didn't find, as Lake County News has reported.
Once the building was cleared and reopened at about 1 p.m., the commission announced that the meeting would be rescheduled and held at the jail, at Sheriff Frank Rivero's suggestion, Coel said.
“I think it was the right call,” said Coel.
“We don't want another bomb threat to disrupt the use of the building,” Coel said of the Lake County Courthouse on N. Forbes Street in Lakeport, where the commission normally meets in the Board of Supervisors' first floor chambers.
Coel said the threat was considered significant enough to shut down the entire four-story building for three hours on April 28, disrupting the business taking place in the courtrooms on the fourth floor and the county offices that also are located throughout the rest of the building.
There's been speculation in the community about the true motivation behind the threat.
Whatever the caller's intentions, Coel suggested the end result of the call could be to “run the clock out” on the current moratorium on new medical marijuana dispensaries, which he said ends on Sept. 15. That, he added, will only create problems for dispensaries.
That's because the Lake County Zoning Ordinance doesn't specifically allow medical marijuana dispensaries, and whatever it doesn't specifically address isn't allowed, according to the ordinance's language.
The moratorium allowed dispensaries that were operating to continue to do so, Coel said.
The Board of Supervisors initially approved the moratorium in 2009 for 45 days, renewed it for another 10 months and then extended it once more for a year in September 2010, he said.
However, Coel explained that the moratorium can't be renewed again once it runs out this fall.
If it were to run out without a dispensaries ordinance in place, Coel said the freeze on enforcement against current dispensaries would be gone.
In the spring of 2009 it was notices of violation leveled against several of the dispensaries that kicked off the effort to update the zoning ordinance, as Lake County News has reported.
Since April 28, Coel said there haven't been any other threats made regarding the issue or the meeting.
“Hopefully whoever did it wises up,” he said.
Capt. James Bauman of the Lake County Sheriff's Office said the cafeteria is estimated to be able to seat about 120 people.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
042811 LC Planning Commission Med Marijuana Ordinance Memo
April 2011 LC Zoning Ord Amend Medical Marijuana Dispensaries
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