Mayor candidates butt heads on marijuana
With a son suffering from cancer, Christina Strawbridge said she’s seen the benefits of marijuana.
“It’s not like I’m aga inst c a nnabis,” Benicia’s vice mayor said. I know it’s helpful.”
Strawbr id ge, however, said the one dispensar y approved on “N” street — with a m a nu f a c t u r i n g and delivering facility given the green light in the Industrial Park — is enough for the town of 28,000.
Councilmember — and fellow mayoral candidate — Steve Young, however, believes the more liberal previous council that approved of two dispen
saries is more in line with the population, the vote of the people when they legalized marijuana, and fair to the nine companies paying $20,000 in application fees to vie for the presumed two openings.
Enter Measure D, an advisory measure on the upcoming ballot. Though having no legally-binding impact, the measure seeks the voters’ voice in whether the current municipal code limiting the number of retail cannabis businesses should be re- open for discussion while perhaps softening the “buffers” of having a dispensary anywhere places where children may congregate.
A “Yes” vote doesn’t automatically increase the number of allowable retail cannabis businesses and a “No” vote indicates voters don’t want any more than the one retail shop already approved.
“Let the people decide. If the voters favor a second dispensary and I’m elected mayor, then ‘ How about it council?’ Follow the rule of the voters,” Young said by
phone Wednesday afternoon.
If Young fails in his mayoral bid, he’s also off the council “and I won’t have a vote … and I won’t have any more input than any other citizen.”
Young said the advisory vote — if a majority for “Yes” — should convince the council to follow “the will of the voters … which means loosening ‘ buffer’ restrictions. Right now, it’s effectively a ban.”
While Young said he “doesn’t believe Benicia should have 10 (dispensaries) like Vallejo, I think two is a reasonable number.”
The initial set of regulations was passed after 18 months of discussion “and, with everyone adding their two cents, a (council) majority at the time said, ‘Let’s do two dispensaries,’” Young said. “We had an elaborate vetting process” where applicants “were out thousands of dollars.”
Then came the 2018 election, with “two members who were anti- cannabis came on who didn’t like those (previous) rules,” Young said. “They got three votes to change rules in the middle of the process, which I believe is inherently unfair. These (applicants)
followed the rules.”
One dispensary was allowed after threatened lawsuits by the applicants, Young said, “but with adopted buffer requirements that basically said we’ll never have another one… that it couldn’t be so many feet from anywhere children congregated.”
Councilmember Tom Campbell, whose term also ends this year, initiated the advisory measure process.
“He thought we should get the feel of the public,” Strawbridge said, adding that there was “a lot of back and forth” of what the measure’s wording would be.
“My feeling was that when Tom brought it up — and the mayor ( Elizabeth Patterson) voted with me — that it was premature to put it on the ballot when we don’t know the ramifications of the first one,” Strawbridge said.
The approved dispensary is expected to open “in a few months,” Strawbridge said. “So there’s no data of how it would effect safety.”
The approval of one site is close to schools, day care, parks, residential areas and faces a parking problem, Strawbridge said.
During meetings
with
the previous council, “what floored me was that we the police officers association, school trustees, superintendent, principals, teachers, parents, and kids testify that they didn’t want dispensaries and it was all ignored,” Strawbridge said. “I received 90 emails in three days, that they didn’t want it there.”
Strawbridge said she fretted that people think that Measure D approves of at least one dispensary for the town when some may not know one is already approved “that’s in a commercial building, butts up against residential and there’s been no traffic study. The (dispensary) owner said he is expecting 200 cars a day in there and getting onto Second Street from ‘ N’ is already difficult.”
And if Measure D passes, Strawbridge said it might convince the council that “buffers we have approved may just go away.”
“Another question out there is that it’s still illegal federally,” Strawbridge said. “Do you really want to see more dispensaries in Benicia? That’s the question.”