School district opposes pot site
Tam Union to supervisors: Deny delivery business
The Tamalpais Union High School District is opposing a medical cannabis delivery business less than a mile from Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley.
“We’re concerned about having a location that distributes cannabis and the students know that — and the messaging it sends around what is OK and what isn’t OK and should we be using it?” said district Superintendent Tara Taupier after the board of trustees voted 4-0 Monday to send a complaint to the Marin County Board of Supervisors prior to its meeting Tuesday. One trustee was absent.
“We’re more concerned that, if the rules should change, and that becomes a storefront access and a retailer,” she added. “If the rules change, all of a sudden you’ve got a retailer, potentially, right there.”
Taupier’s statements came af
ter a special board meeting Monday at the district conference center in Larkspur. At issue is an application from Elite Herbs, one of several cannabis businesses that have been seeking a license to operate in the county for the past year and a half.
The application is for 25 Evergreen Ave. in unincorporated Mill Valley near the city limit. The Marin County Board of Supervisors will consider the proposal at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Civic Center.
“This location is approximately 0.7 miles from Tamalpais High School and in an area that is heavily traveled
by students coming to and returning from school each day,” the board’s letter states. “While we trust law enforcement to hold the business accountable to the parameters of the operating license, we have concerns that the delivery-only status could change sometime in the future.”
The letter ends by asking the county board to “respectfully consider the welfare of our young people and deny this application.”
Travis Perkins, CEO of Elite Herbs, said after the vote he was “pretty much expecting” the board’s decision.
“We’ll see what happens tomorrow,” he said.
Perkins, who lives in San Rafael but whose daughter attends Tamalpais High School, told the board he
had “searched all over the county for available space and it came down to 25 Evergreen.” He was one of four retailers that originally applied at 7 Mount Lassen Drive in the Lucas Valley area of San Rafael, but he lost out in a second county lottery to another retailer after county shelved plans for a multi-purpose operation at that location.
Perkins said he has been “playing by the rules” and diligently following procedures at each step in the lengthy county vetting process. He said he already has 4,000 Marin patients who receive medical cannabis under the state’s former Prop. 215 regulations.
District parent Stephen DeLapp, who also attended Monday’s meeting, told the district board he agreed
“100 percent” with the board’s letter.
“This is an absurd location,” he said. “Where are they going to deliver to? It’s hard to get on the freeway from there after 2 p.m.”
According to Inge Lundegaard, commercial cannabis program manager for Marin County, 25 Evergreen Ave. complies with the state and local requirements to be 600 feet from a school, day care or playground. She said Elite Herbs took all the appropriate steps in the rigorous two-phased process that started months ago with 15 applicants.
“They had to get 80 points out of 100, and then the lottery took it down to four,” she said. Marin County staff is recommending approval of the application.