Another hearing for Ukiah dispensary
Staff: Nearby tutoring center will not preclude business from operating
Another hearing to consider allowing a cannabis dispensary to open on North State Street will be held tonight by the Ukiah Planning Commission.
The commission postponed its determination on whether or not to grant a permit to Element 7 Ukiah in order to sell cannabis, as well as conduct non-volatile manufacturing of the product, at 441 N. State St. after city Planning Department staff were alerted to the fact that a potential school was nearby.
“And I don’t know if it is just their offices or they have classes
there, but if it is a school, it needs to be 600 feet from the dispensary, and it is only 400 feet away,” Commissioner Mike Whetzel said.
“I’m not aware of any school located at the corner, and we’ll have to check into it,” said Community Development Director Craig Schlatter, suggesting that the hearing be postponed until the commission’s May 13 meeting to allow planning staff to investigate.
According to a 2018 story in The Ukiah Daily Journal, the “Academic Success Center, located at 307 N. State Street, focuses on helping Native American students in Ukiah Unified School District get college and career counseling advice and academic tutoring needed to get them on the path to college. The center has activities set up for art, science and math subjects, including STEM and computer programming.”
On Tuesday, Schlatter said that staff determined that the center did not qualify under current city code, or the state’s educational code, as either a school or a youth- oriented facility, and therefore would not preclude the proposed dispensary from operating.
When asked previously by Commissioner Linda Sanders why a hearing on the dispensary was being held at all given the limited amount of activities being allowed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Schlatter explained that “cannabis dispensaries are one of the businesses allowed to be open, so this is both an essential business and a project that was deemed essential.”
If allowed, the dispensary will be operating in an existing, two- story building that was a residence converted into office space. Planning staff said that the first floor “will have a retail dispensary and complimentary spa treatments in a holistic retreat area,” and the second floor will host “nonvolatile manufacturing (described as the) packaging of raw cannabis into pre-roll, no distilling involved.”
Schlatter said his staff has received numerous correspondence from the public regarding the latest dispensary project. To join the 6 p.m. May 13 meeting from your computer, tablet, or smartphone go to: https:// global. gotomeeting. com/ join/403937173 or you can listen on any phone by dialing the number: 1 (646) 7493112, and entering the access code: 403937 173.