UPDATE:
The Fortuna City Council voted unanimously last night to require residents to register their personal-use cannabis grows with the city.
Residents wanting to exercise their rights under Proposition 64 to grow up to six marijuana plants for personal use will now have to pay a $100 filing fee to the city, file a “notice of cultivation” and potentially open their homes to city inspections.
The council also met in a special closed session meeting yesterday afternoon to evaluate the performance of City Manager Mark Wheetley. According to Deputy Clerk Megan Wilbanks, the council reported no action out of the closed-door meeting. (The closed session item on the same topic agendized for the regular council meeting was canceled.)
PREVIOUSLY:
As recreational cannabis goes legal throughout California, the Fortuna City Council will contemplate further cracking down on grows within city limits.
The council had already taken action to ban commercial cultivation and sales within city limits, for both medical and recreational cannabis, and banned personal-use outdoor grows, making it illegal for someone to grow a plant in their backyard. Now the council is looking at taking steps to rein in the right Proposition 64 granted on all Californians — to grow up to six plants in their residences.
Tonight, the council will decide whether to approve a $100 filing fee and require residents wanting to grow their six plants to file “notices of cultivation” with city hall.
“The purpose of the notice is to protect the public health and safety by notifying the city of legal cultivation sites, and to establish a fee that will cover a portion of the cost to administer the notices,” the staff report states. “Staff time will include basic filing and record keeping as well as review of each notice by the planning division, building division and police department to check for compliance with standards of the ordinance. Efforts might include discussion with the resident, checking existing building permit records, and site visits to confirm compliance with the standards such as the prohibition of visual and odor-related cultivation.”
Journal attempts to reach Fortuna City Manager Mark Wheetley to discuss the proposal Friday and this morning were not successful.
Proposition 64 allows local jurisdictions to adopt “reasonable regulations” on personal use grows of six plants or fewer, but stops short of delineating what those might be. Is it reasonable for a city to require residents to put their names on a public list and open their homes up for inspection in order to grow cannabis for their own personal use? City staff seems to think so but elsewhere similar proposals have met pushback and threats of litigation.
The city of Fontana passed an ordinance requiring residents to get $411 permits from the city and submit to criminal background checks to make sure they don’t have any drug convictions in the past five years. (Under the ordinance, residents also can’t have any overdue fees or bills from the city.) The city of Indian Wells similarly passed an ordinance requiring residents to get $141 annual permits and submit to home inspections.
Both cities were named in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of California and the Drug Policy Alliance.
“This is an overreach,” Fontana resident Thomas Abouriali told the Cannifornian of his city’s ordinance. “I don’t like the fact that you have to give up your privacy and say the city can come in and inspect your home in order to do what state law says you have the right to do. It’s a very slippery slope, in my opinion.”
In Fortuna’s proposed resolution, the city argues that requiring residents to register their grows would help the city inform them of the “standards and requirements” of the city’s municipal code and “ease the city’s ability to investigate and enforce cultivation sites that are not allowed and which may be causing a neighborhood nuisance.” It’s unclear from the city’s staff report what penalty if any there would be for a resident failing to pay the fee and register his or her grow with the city.
Other municipalities — like San Juan Capistrano — have made it a misdemeanor to cultivate for personal use without a local permit.
In a letter sent to the San Juan Capistrano City Council opposing its proposal, Ellen Komp, deputy director of the California chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, turned to an analogy.
“Requiring a permit for someone to grow a personal marijuana garden, and making it a potential misdemeanor with a six-month sentence to grow without one, is rather like a law giving women the right to vote — but requiring them to get a permission slip from their husbands, or else face jail time,” she wrote.
In other matters, the Fortuna City Council will meet in closed session — both at its regular meeting at 6 p.m. tonight and at a special meeting two hours earlier — to evaluate and review Wheetley’s performance.
This article appears in Top 10 Stories of 2017.
Will I have to register my basil and tomatoes too? And my medicinal echinacea? Hypocrisy and greed are thick around these parts.
This isn’t legalization. It’s a set up to make money through fines and property seizures.
Anti-Pot policy, Pro Decriminalization…..to all thy suckers who thought legalization would be a good thing……as Deb wrote, it is about seizing assets….huge national debt, state budgets are crap…..gotta get the money from somewhere and someone……easier to take it from folks who knock on the door to do business than those pesky and elusive black market patriots……
Appearance- The ironic thing Fortuna is screwing up on is not allowing personal grows outdoors or in greenhouses, but allow indoor grows with registration, really….. (the city council would rather you sleep with your weed and smell it up closer and personal, create mold issues, water stain issues, etc…destroy the living unit than to have your weed where all vegetation naturally grows…… outside…….maybe even within a pesonalized garden area, maybe or not along with the rest of your tomato plants, cucumbers, potatoes, herbs, spices and whatever else)…..Who will now grow just to spite the city, then get tax payers and insurance to pay all the way to the state supreme court…..silly council members……
……..will the state allow local municipalities to maintain local laws that don’t allow locals those opportunities legalized by the state? If so on this issue, Fortuna is not a “right to work city” or a “right to recreate city” or even a “right to personal health city”……not a friendly city any longer as previously advertised on television years ago……
Indoor personal grows should not be allowed without a full reclassification of the single family residence into a mixed occupancy use, which requires a public hearing, notices to all neighboring properties within 300 feet, etc…..and a possible denial of request by planning commission (doubt city planning director would pull a dictator styled administrator exemption card on any pot issues) * duly note that the focus should be on the actual living unit that no longer matches up to the set of building plans in the building department as filed during the construction and development process of that piece of land…….. The dope head is now the latest general contractor to make changes to the building that requires a permit requires a process requires fees to be paid, requires the local/state housing elements to be revisited, recalculated……. And people wonder why housing in Humboldt County cost so much…… Well when you’re converting homes into something that no longer is livable like it was before, then more people battle for limited availability of livable units…..
once you grow agriculture in a home, the home is no longer just a home…..when ya convert a garage, parking is pushed out onto the street…….HSU STUDENTS ARE HUGE PERPS IN THIS AREA WITH DRUG OPS AND BEDROOM CONVERSIONS soiling Arcata’s housing units and garages……..expensive rents need to be mitigated and paid…..lots of code violations to boot……
As far as commercialized buds for sale, a person has a right to put into their body whatever they want, WHICH MAKES IT A HEALTH CHOICE, A MEDICAL CHOICE (RECREATIONAL POT DOES NOT REALLY EXIST, IT’S ALL HEALTH Related, MEDICAL)….. EATING IS NOT RECREATIONAL, smoking, eating, topical application to relax is medical…… Both are absolutely necessary and/or can become an addiction/ disease……taking pharmaceutical pills is really not both recreational and medical, so how is it that pot is so unique???? (Is it because people Spike drinks with drugs to take advantage of someone else even though that drug was never supposed to be used in a situation where someone is receiving that drug through spiked Food Services, etc….??? ….. So if Pharma pills are being used improperly for recreational purposes of rape, then of course the politicians have to connect pot to pills in a similar fashion….grow hoes)
And then a twist, but that which connects theoretically, people cannot be forced into mental health clincs (the concept runs along the same lines of thought that a person can put whatever they want into their body just as much as not wanting their body to be subjected to something)(it is why courts have a hard time forcing a person into health services…..often, the claims are part of a higher game of lawyer this, lawyer that from a bag of lies…..usually arbitrary observations)
……simple plants should never need corporate jurisdiction or corporate approval or corporate structure for human consumption…..if ya want it, grow it yourself…….if ya can’t find a way to grow it yourself, then get it from another source that legalization or policies never created opportunities for…….simple things in life don’t need regulation……nor a corporate marketplace…….no need to reinvent the wheel for whole foods not processed……site, smell, taste, feel…….
As far as commercial MJ biproducts: let the commercial market have at it, but lets not conflate the issue by conjoining separate issues…….not everyone wants to grow….some just want to buy only……..taxman have at it on the recreation products…….
Medical – another separate issue…..dispensaries……health needs….options…..do it all services……never needed recreational pot classification…..politicians ain’t selling pot politics on the notion that it is only medical…..because by using a fake recreational label, so much more money can be involved……
Locally – all the hype on land use for grows, but never told what the grow is for…….FOOD, TOPICAL OR SMOKE…..WHICH IS IT? Everything just in case…..?
LOCAL DISPENSARIES DO TESTING, AND WANT CALIFORNIA TO MAKE IT A LAW THAT WHEN YOUR POT FAILS THE TESTING THAT THE DISPENSARY IS FORCED TO DESTROY THE PRODUCT…… Talk about the competition getting a few legs up…… When competing businesses are taking out many competing businesses…… By using a simple known gimmick that goes by the word “testing”………..
Testers should only test, not sell because of the potentiality of being biased toward preferred product origins ……or all sellers must be testers……especially at the grass roots levels of society……
The city limits (aside from Row’s, other covenants) do not extend into/inside the house, so the city wants another bedroom peek a boo, we see you “identity” requirement…….
City limits do not extend onto your personal private property either (land), so the whole garden thing for personal use is bad outside seems irrational……well folks….ya gonna vote this council next election, or shape em up now???
Personal garden, let that sink in…….
………all kinds of personal uses that garden growers don’t appreciate their neighbors or others partake in doing……but the city don’t give a whoop…..no need to give a whoop now…….
Edit option did not appear
Correction:
(aside from Row’s, other covenants), City limits do not extend onto your personal private property either (land), so the whole garden thing for personal use is bad outside seems irrational……well folks….ya gonna vote this council next election, or shape em up now???
Fortuna city council is a validated joke…..really long time locals, is this the best you can vote into office???????????
It is illegal for the city to make a person sign up on a list……it violates doctor/patient confidentiality…..
So, maybe a better job at explaining if the city means only personal recreation versus personal medical……..
The city is attempting to use “open shaming/fear creation” to limit grows…..iow, if you grow the city wants as many people to know who, what, where….. criminal minded types are smart……they serve on elected boards often……
Pot is proving diversity does not work and is a crock of crapola…….
Fortuna proves segregation is alive and well……
The Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) will likely bankrupt California municipalities as lawsuits from every side enrich lawyers and put the legitimate cannabis market out of business.