CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The Clearlake City Council is set to hold its second and final reading of a proposed ordinance to ban all marijuana cultivation in the city limits at its meeting this week.
The council will meet beginning at 6 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 26, at the Clearlake Senior Community Center, 3245 Bowers Ave.
The meeting has once again been moved from city hall to the senior center due to the expectation that a large number of community members will attend.
The council held the ordinance's first reading Feb. 12. At that meeting, more than 200 people packed the senior center.
After hearing several hours of testimony on Feb. 12, the council voted 4-1 to approve the resolution. Councilman Bruno Sabatier voted against it.
The 13-page ordinance proposes to ban the growing of all marijuana – medicinal or otherwise – in any part of the city.
Currently, the city's cultivation ordinance – which went into effect in January 2014 – prohibits commercial grows and grows on vacant lots, and limits the number of plants to six on parcels smaller than a half acre and as many as 48 plants on properties 40 acres or larger.
If implemented, the proposed ordinance would give city residents who are growing 30 days to harvest their crops before being subject to a number of penalties for violations, which range from abatements and administrative citations to misdemeanors.
Should the ordinance go into effect, it would become the strictest marijuana-related ordinance in the county. Lakeport's ordinance allows grows within special accessory structures, and the county's Measure N allows indoor grows of less than 100 square feet, and while it bans grows in neighborhoods it allows them on parcels larger than one acre outside of community growth boundaries.
On the meeting's consent agenda – items considered noncontroversial and usually accepted as a slate on one vote – are warrant registers and minutes from the Feb. 12 meeting.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
021214 Clearlake City Council - Proposed ordinance to ban marijuana cultivation by LakeCoNews
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