Sunnyvale votes to ban marijuana dispensaries and outdoor cultivation

SUNNYVALE The City Council voted unanimously to ban outdoor personal and commercial marijuana cultivation and nonmedical commercial marijuana activity within the city.

The unanimous vote last week also included restrictions on indoor personal marijuana use such as limiting the number of plants to six inside a single private residence, limiting lighting for marijuana cultivation to 1,000 watts per light, and requiring proper ventilation and filtration so that odors from cultivation aren’t noticeable by noncultivating neighbors, among others.

Council members Nancy Smith and Larry Klein said the ban on nonmedical and medical commercial marijuana activity is a way to keep local control before Prop. 64 takes effect Jan. 1, which will legalize commercial marijuana use for adults 21 and older in the state. They added it was likely that the issue would be revisited in the future.

“I feel Sunnyvale is being cautious,” Smith said. “If we didn’t take action, our local ordinances would be pre-empted. We are doing this because we want local control. We have a study issue related to marijuana at our next study issue ranking session, so this is not the end of our conversations about marijuana.”

The move is not surprising given the city’s history with medical marijuana. Sunnyvale has had a ban on medical marijuana dispensaries since 2010, and in 2016 the city voted to ban medical marijuana cultivation, delivery, and other commercial activities in the city. The Sept. 26 vote will now include nonmedical marijuana in that ban.

In February 2016 the council also voted to prohibit smoking in outdoor dining areas, within 25 feet of building entryways, at public events, within 25 feet of public transit stops, inside multi-family residential units and common areas, and within 25 feet of doors and windows of multi-family residences. Smoking marijuana is included in those restrictions.

Former Palo Alto planning commissioner Andrew Boone spoke during public comment, saying he felt both the recreational and medical marijuana bans were inappropriate.

“This is ridiculous when 59 percent of Sunnyvale voted for Prop. 64,” he said. “There are delivery services operating in Sunnyvale even though you have a ban. It shocks me that you tried to ban medicine, the delivery of medicine.”

Boone went on to say that the ban was a poor fiscal decision as the city could earn revenue from taxing dispensaries.

Scott Lane also told the council he felt the ban was inappropriate and recommended the city instead enact a temporary ban.

“Get someone who understands what the good, bad and ugly for recreational marijuana is” to oversee the ban, he said.