California - When the persistent "skunk" smell of marijuana became too much for Linda Kurtz, she did what she said she had to do.
She went to Rancho Cordova City Hall and asked the City Council to protect her from the smell coming from her neighbor's backyard marijuana plants.
In so doing, she brought the city to the forefront of the next big issue facing marijuana producers and municipal regulators in California.
"Where are my rights?" Kurtz said she asked the council. "What do I have to do to protect my rights?"
As more and more people become eligible to grow their own marijuana for medicinal use, should there be limits on where and how cultivation takes place?
So far, few municipalities have tackled cultivation issues. The focus has been on medical marijuana dispensaries and the law.
California voters approved possession and cultivation for eligible patients and their primary caregivers in 1996 by passing Proposition 215. In 2004, the Legislature established a voluntary statewide identification card system for patients. The state attorney general issued guidelines for patients and law enforcement in 2008.
Since then, the number of patient dispensaries — collectives or cooperatives — has grown. In the city of Sacramento, where regulation is under consideration, close to 40 dispensaries have registered. Arcata, on the North Coast, caps the number at four, and eventually the number will decrease to two. In Oakland, which allows four dispensaries, voters approved a gross-receipts tax on pot sales.
The cities of Sacramento and West Sacramento are working toward a dispensary ordinance. West Sacramento's plan would have a limit of two dispensaries and restrict them to commercial zones.
Cities such as Anaheim and Davis prohibit dispensaries, but the Anaheim ban faces a closely watched challenge in state appeals court. A decision is expected soon.
Legalization will spread, advocates said.
"We have 14 legal states," said Lanette Davies, who calls herself a patient-rights activist. "But the entire nation is looking at California."
California law leaves zoning regulation to local jurisdictions — the challenge now before Rancho Cordova.
"None of us would have thought prior to her (Kurtz) coming to the council in October that cultivation was a problem," Rancho Cordova Councilwoman Linda Budge said.
Maybe so, but Councilman David Sander offers a solution: No cultivation in residential neighborhoods.
Security and nuisance factors make backyards bad places for marijuana growing, he said. Growing indoors brings other problems, such as high humidity, bad for interior walls.
"Eventually, you end up saying this may not be conducive to a residential neighborhood," Sander said. He'd rather see growers find warehouses or agricultural areas "where it doesn't impinge on a person's right to enjoy their property."
For others, the issues are not cut and dried.
"I would just say everybody has feelings on this issue, Rancho Cordova Mayor Ken Cooley said. "I think we're going to let our city attorney and staff continue to chew on this a little bit."
City Attorney Adam Lindgren said Rancho Cordova's approach is "to be protective of the quality of life in neighborhoods. And we've worked hard to ensure that the surrounding uses are compatible and complementary."
The city is just starting to look closely at how to balance the rights of residents to be free of neighborhood nuisances against the rights, if any, of medical marijuana users to grow, Lindgren said.
That balancing effort should produce an ordinance in the coming weeks that proposes to move growing indoors, a rule similar to one in Arcata.
In 2008, Arcata restricted legal cultivation to the inside of private residences — but not in kitchens, bathrooms or primary bedrooms. Cultivation is allowed only by an eligible patient living in a home, or a caregiver. The approach tries to limit growing on behalf of too many patients.
Keeping plants out of sight — and away from her olfactory senses — might help Linda Kurtz.
Her neighbor's plants this growing season grew large, about 2 feet higher than the dividing backyard fence, she said.
By the time she appeared before the City Council, she was exasperated.
"Nobody can know what the stench is unless you're in my house laying your head down on the pillow 10 feet away" from the plants, Kurtz said later.
A friend walking to her house once exclaimed, "Oh my gosh. A skunk!" Kurtz recalled. "I said, 'This isn't a skunk. This is what we live with day in and day out.' "
Brian, the neighbor-grower who asked that his full name not be used "because of the criminal element out there," said he has tried to be sensitive.
Marijuana gives him relief from the pain of bulging and ruptured disks. Ordinary medicine keeps him awake all night long, he said.
Three years ago, his first year for a crop, "I grew a kind that didn't smell as much, because I knew she was sensitive to it," he said.
In the latest growing season, he nurtured the same weed but fertilized "very well — five bags of steer manure and three bags of chicken manure."
The crop grew larger than he expected.
Now it's not clear if he'll grow another crop next growing season.
"I have got to say, is it worth it in terms of the hassle?" he asked. "I don't want to create an uproar."
News Hawk- Weedpipe 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: The Sacramento Bee
Author: Loretta Kalb
Contact: The Sacramento Bee
Copyright: The Sacramento Bee
Website:Rancho Cordova plans ordinance on pot growing
She went to Rancho Cordova City Hall and asked the City Council to protect her from the smell coming from her neighbor's backyard marijuana plants.
In so doing, she brought the city to the forefront of the next big issue facing marijuana producers and municipal regulators in California.
"Where are my rights?" Kurtz said she asked the council. "What do I have to do to protect my rights?"
As more and more people become eligible to grow their own marijuana for medicinal use, should there be limits on where and how cultivation takes place?
So far, few municipalities have tackled cultivation issues. The focus has been on medical marijuana dispensaries and the law.
California voters approved possession and cultivation for eligible patients and their primary caregivers in 1996 by passing Proposition 215. In 2004, the Legislature established a voluntary statewide identification card system for patients. The state attorney general issued guidelines for patients and law enforcement in 2008.
Since then, the number of patient dispensaries — collectives or cooperatives — has grown. In the city of Sacramento, where regulation is under consideration, close to 40 dispensaries have registered. Arcata, on the North Coast, caps the number at four, and eventually the number will decrease to two. In Oakland, which allows four dispensaries, voters approved a gross-receipts tax on pot sales.
The cities of Sacramento and West Sacramento are working toward a dispensary ordinance. West Sacramento's plan would have a limit of two dispensaries and restrict them to commercial zones.
Cities such as Anaheim and Davis prohibit dispensaries, but the Anaheim ban faces a closely watched challenge in state appeals court. A decision is expected soon.
Legalization will spread, advocates said.
"We have 14 legal states," said Lanette Davies, who calls herself a patient-rights activist. "But the entire nation is looking at California."
California law leaves zoning regulation to local jurisdictions — the challenge now before Rancho Cordova.
"None of us would have thought prior to her (Kurtz) coming to the council in October that cultivation was a problem," Rancho Cordova Councilwoman Linda Budge said.
Maybe so, but Councilman David Sander offers a solution: No cultivation in residential neighborhoods.
Security and nuisance factors make backyards bad places for marijuana growing, he said. Growing indoors brings other problems, such as high humidity, bad for interior walls.
"Eventually, you end up saying this may not be conducive to a residential neighborhood," Sander said. He'd rather see growers find warehouses or agricultural areas "where it doesn't impinge on a person's right to enjoy their property."
For others, the issues are not cut and dried.
"I would just say everybody has feelings on this issue, Rancho Cordova Mayor Ken Cooley said. "I think we're going to let our city attorney and staff continue to chew on this a little bit."
City Attorney Adam Lindgren said Rancho Cordova's approach is "to be protective of the quality of life in neighborhoods. And we've worked hard to ensure that the surrounding uses are compatible and complementary."
The city is just starting to look closely at how to balance the rights of residents to be free of neighborhood nuisances against the rights, if any, of medical marijuana users to grow, Lindgren said.
That balancing effort should produce an ordinance in the coming weeks that proposes to move growing indoors, a rule similar to one in Arcata.
In 2008, Arcata restricted legal cultivation to the inside of private residences — but not in kitchens, bathrooms or primary bedrooms. Cultivation is allowed only by an eligible patient living in a home, or a caregiver. The approach tries to limit growing on behalf of too many patients.
Keeping plants out of sight — and away from her olfactory senses — might help Linda Kurtz.
Her neighbor's plants this growing season grew large, about 2 feet higher than the dividing backyard fence, she said.
By the time she appeared before the City Council, she was exasperated.
"Nobody can know what the stench is unless you're in my house laying your head down on the pillow 10 feet away" from the plants, Kurtz said later.
A friend walking to her house once exclaimed, "Oh my gosh. A skunk!" Kurtz recalled. "I said, 'This isn't a skunk. This is what we live with day in and day out.' "
Brian, the neighbor-grower who asked that his full name not be used "because of the criminal element out there," said he has tried to be sensitive.
Marijuana gives him relief from the pain of bulging and ruptured disks. Ordinary medicine keeps him awake all night long, he said.
Three years ago, his first year for a crop, "I grew a kind that didn't smell as much, because I knew she was sensitive to it," he said.
In the latest growing season, he nurtured the same weed but fertilized "very well — five bags of steer manure and three bags of chicken manure."
The crop grew larger than he expected.
Now it's not clear if he'll grow another crop next growing season.
"I have got to say, is it worth it in terms of the hassle?" he asked. "I don't want to create an uproar."
News Hawk- Weedpipe 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: The Sacramento Bee
Author: Loretta Kalb
Contact: The Sacramento Bee
Copyright: The Sacramento Bee
Website:Rancho Cordova plans ordinance on pot growing
