Marin belies reputation, looks down on pot shops
There was a time when Marin County was a capital of cannabis hipsterism, a New Age outpost of ganja in a weed-hostile world, but when recreational sales of marijuana become legal Jan. 1, the county that rarely abstains will be sitting out.
County officials recently rejected all 10 applications for licenses to operate medical marijuana dispensaries. That’s despite the fact that nearly 70 percent of Marin voters approved Proposition 64, the 2016 initiative that legalized recreational cannabis, and that county supervisors previously passed an ordinance allowing up to four medicinal shops on unincorporated land.
It turns out that many residents are fine with the idea of cannabis capitalism, as long as it isn’t happening in their backyard.
“We had significant public opposition from neighbors,” said Tom Lai, principal planner and assistant director of the
county’s Community Development Agency.
Because Marin officials had hinged all future commercial activities related to adult use on how the medical applications worked out, the rejection means the county is guaranteed to be almost totally devoid of marijuana shops for the foreseeable future — even after recreational use becomes legal statewide on Jan. 1.
There will just be one tiny exception, and it’s not on county land: a longtime dispensary in the town of Fairfax that has been grandfathered into the current era of rejection.
“I think it was probably just a classic, like, NIMBY thing,” said Will Hutchinson, cofounder of Proof Lab Surf Shop in an unincorporated area of Mill Valley, where there were five dispensary applications, including four near his shop on Shoreline Highway.
“Space is tight in Mill Valley, so I get it,” said Hutchinson, whose clients probably skew in favor of marijuana outlets, but who personally did not have a dog in the fight. “My sense is that people wanted it to be in some area that was lower profile.”
No area was low-profile enough, according to Lai, who described a near frenzy of opposition, including two petitions with hundreds of signatures opposing dispensaries in neighborhoods where they were proposed. The dispensaries under consideration were too close to homes, schools or passing children, or were simply incompatible with neighborhoods, according to the complaints.
The public opposition prompted County Administrator Matthew Hymel to reject the medical retail licenses, even though the county had just gone through a nearly two-year rule-making and application process, including numerous public hearings. His decision was recently upheld by county supervisors after seven of the applicants appealed.
Then, on Nov. 14, the supervisors repealed the ordinance they passed in 2015 allowing dispensaries.
The rejection of storefront sales of the medical herb is not isolated to the unincorporated areas of Marin. Every city and town council except Fairfax has either banned dispensaries and adult use shops or taken public positions opposing them. The city councils in San Rafael, Larkspur and Novato have discussed the possibility of allowing dispensaries in the future, but no action has been taken.
For cannabis enthusiasts, it’s a case of reefer sadness.
“We voted to make it legal,” Doretta Boehm of Sausalito wrote during a heated argument on Nextdoor over whether the will of the people was being ignored. “Why should a few put the (kibosh) on what most are in favor of ? Are we really so provincial that we think pot is a scourge who will lead our youth into heroin overdoses?”
Prop. 64 imposes strict regulations on marijuana cultivation and sales, including pesticide testing, labeling of ingredients, video monitoring and security at storefronts. Merchants will pay a 15 percent excise tax on retail sales starting in January, but the state will not license any business that does not first obtain a local permit.
However, not having any storefront weed outlets doesn’t mean the county is going to be marijuana-free.
Inge Lundegaard, the county’s cannabis project manager, is in charge of a delivery-only retail licensing system, approved by county supervisors on Nov. 14, that would allow folks hankering for a toke of medicine to have it brought to their home.
“We are requiring them to be closed to the public,” Lundegaard said of the distribution shops, which would own delivery vehicles and employ drivers. She said the county will also consider testing laboratories and manufacturing plants.
The lone exception in Marin to the over-the-counter sales ban is the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Fairfax, where the proprietor, Lynnette Shaw, spent two decades battling the federal government in court for the right to sell medical marijuana.
Shaw, who began providing cannabis to HIV/AIDS patients and women with breast cancer in the early 1990s, opened her dispensary in 1996, a fly-bynight operation in which communications were carried out using a pay phone and a pager.
“It was covert action, but we had a lot of really sick people,” she said. “We were their only safety net, and we were illegal.”
Shaw said she fought efforts to kick her out until 2011, when a federal judge ordered her to abandon her business and promise never to sell marijuana again. The order was revoked after Congress passed a bill in 2014 prohibiting the U.S. Justice Department from spending money to bust dealers in states where medical marijuana had been legalized.
It is ironic, Shaw said, that the primary battleground in the fight to legalize medical marijuana is now itself limiting cannabis commerce. She thinks the public opposition is all about protecting Marin’s astronomical property values from stoner blight, a fear she finds irrational.
“This is a funny, quirky, beautiful county where the people support cannabis,” Shaw said, “but they also want their solitude and they don’t want anything to devalue their real estate.”
Marin isn’t the only jurisdiction in California to go against the grain as the state prepares for recreational sales. Many rural and conservative inland communities, where incomes are generally lower than those in leafy Marin, have passed regulations prohibiting the cultivation, distribution and sale of marijuana.
In the Bay Area, Colma banned commercial recreational cannabis activity and personal cultivation, despite the fact that 59 percent of the residents voted for Prop. 64.
Still, most of the 110 cities and counties in the Bay Area, including San Francisco, are working on zoning and other laws that would permit adults to use the redolent weed. A few cities have rules in place, among them Oakland, Berkeley and Santa Cruz.
Sonoma County, which already has as many as 9,000 growers and 12,000 people in the business, is a leader in the cannabis trade among Bay Area counties. Supervisors there plan to begin collecting taxes on medical marijuana and add rules for recreational sales at a later date.
Shaw, who is known as the “godmother” of ganja in Marin, said she will apply for a recreational sales license if and when the Fairfax City Council votes to allow that option. Until then, she said, she will be perfectly happy to continue cornering the market on medical marijuana.
“I think some towns will eventually allow dispensaries, but it will be a while,” she said. “At least there is one.”