Foes fail to block pot shop in Sunset

Hundreds of mostly older Chinese residents turned out Thursday night at City Hall to oppose a medical cannabis dispensary proposed for the Sunset District, but their testimony was not enough to sway planning commissioners, who voted 5-1 to approve the pot shop.

The vote, which followed five hours of public comment, paves the way for the Apothecarium to open a dispensary at 2505 Noriega St. It will be the first in the Sunset.

“Last night’s decision was a huge victory for Sunset cannabis patients,” said Dr. Floyd Huen, medical adviser to and a co-owner of the Apothecarium Sunset, along with his wife, former Oakland Mayor Jean Quan. “Health care happens in person. Patients deserve a well-run dispensary in their own neighborhood where they can receive consultations about their medication and dosage.”

Even by the standards of regularly acrimonious Planning Commission meetings, Thursday’s medical cannabis showdown was exceptional. The hallways outside the chambers were jampacked, and extra deputy sheriffs had to be called in to deal with screaming matches between supporters and opponents.

Commissioner Dennis Richards, the single no vote, said the opposition may have overplayed its hand — noting that critics of the medical cannabis dispensary said it would cause everything from fatal vehicle wrecks to homelessness to murder.

“The idea that children are going to be sucked in, that people are going to die because an MCD opens, is not really grounded in reality,” Richards said. “It became a circus — way over the top. I think that alienated some of the commissioners.”

Richards said he doesn’t think any medical cannabis dispensaries should be approved until the city figures out how to implement Proposition 64, the 2016 initiative that legalized recreational marijuana. The Planning Department is scheduled to release policy guidelines in September. The key question will be whether medical cannabis dispensaries will be first in line to convert to recreational cannabis stores and how that conversion process would work.

Several speakers on Thursday noted that the Sunset has voted in favor of both medical and recreational marijuana. About 66 percent of the neighborhood supported Proposition 215, the 1996 medical marijuana referendum, and 58 percent backed Prop. 64.