Home Antioch Antioch City Council Extends Moratorium on Non-Medical Marijuana

Antioch City Council Extends Moratorium on Non-Medical Marijuana

by ECT

On Tuesday, the Antioch City Council unanimously voted to extend an interim urgency ordinance on a temporary moratorium on non-medical marijuana users within the City of Antioch.

The City will now have a moratorium that has been extended for an additional 10 months and 15 days as they work through their policy.

The ordinance was put in place due to Proposition 64 — known as the Control, Regulate, and Tax Adult Use of Marijuana Act, was approved by the voters on November 8, 2016 and took effect on November 9. The AUMA has legalized non-medical marijuana use, possession and cultivation by persons 21 years of age or older. The AUMA has also established a regulatory framework for commercial non-medical marijuana activities.

The moratorium within the City of Antioch specifically prohibits the following non-medical marijuana activities for personal use: outdoor cultivation for personal use, indoor cultivation for personal use that does not comply with state law.

The following commercial non-medical marijuana uses are prohibited by the moratorium: cultivation; manufacture; testing; retail; distribution/delivery; microbusiness; and any commercial marijuana activity that may be licensed by the state staff has begun the process of evaluating regulatory options with respect to non-medical marijuana useswith the assistance of outside legal counsel.

In order to draft permanent regulations, Council direction is sought on the following issues:

  • Personal Cultivation
    • To what extent shall the City ban or allow private outdoor cultivation for personal use? If outdoor cultivation is allowed, what regulations should be imposed?
    • What regulations should be imposed on private indoor cultivation for personal use since the AUMA does not allow a total ban?
  • Commercial Marijuana Activities
    • Shall the City prohibit all commercial marijuana activities, as allowed by the AUMA?
    • If the City chooses to allow commercial marijuana activities, which activities will be allowed? What types of regulations should be placed on allowed marijuana land uses? What type of local permit or permits will be required? How will the City process land use applications? What type of local taxes and/or fees should be imposed?
  • Marijuana Deliveries
    • Shall the City prohibit marijuana deliveries that begin or end within the City’s boundaries? The AUMA and the Medical Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act (MCRSA) allow cities to enact such prohibitions. However, a city may not prevent a delivery service from using public roads to simply pass through its jurisdiction.
    • If deliveries are allowed, should they be limited to medical marijuana deliveries?

Neighboring cities have the following policy in place:

  • Brentwood –Ban on cultivation, dispensaries and delivery.
  • Oakley –Ban on cultivation, dispensaries and delivery.
  • Pittsburg –Ban on non-medical marijuana to the fullest extent allowed by Prop. 64 and adopted regulations on indoor cultivation as allowed by Prop. 64.

Councilman Tony Tiscareno asked if they extended the ordinance up to 10-months, could it come back sooner.

“We need to figure out what we need to do for our city which is why you are going to bring it back with a report with our options. Realistically, how long do you think it will take?” asked Tiscareno.

Staff replied it could come back rather quickly with the most prohibitive all uses, imposing regulations consistent with Prop 64—it could come back in January. If they want options and allow some actual level of activity, it will take longer.

“I’d like to see all options to see where we are going to go when we extend this,” said Tiscareno. “The results of precincts and seemed like very single precinct favored passage of marijuana. The only one that opposed it was a precinct of just 3 voters so for pretty much the city of Antioch they spoke that they want to see something reasonable within the law.”
He highlighted he was looking at all options for revenue sources, but needed to be careful with zoning. He liked the fact they could not ban indoor, but could restrict outdoor marijuana.

“I am looking at revenue sources with this and I want to continue that mindset,” said Tiscareno. “I am looking at discussing all options with the council and see where we go from there.”

Antioch Police Chief Allan Cantando stated he was in favor of the extension.

“I think we should postpone this as long as we can for a couple of reasons. One, like Councilman Tiscareno stated, look at policy and adoptions of this matter with other cities and how they handle it. As other cities start to adopt these measures we are going to see the good and bad of each one,” explained Cantando. “So its best, in my opinion, to take a wait and see because once we have that it’s harder to make it less restrictive rather than to open it up.”

He also warned the council that even though a lot of these precincts passed this Proposition, it doesn’t mean they want it in their backyard or don’t want to have the associated factors with having businesses with this because there are some mitigating issues that police would have to encounter.

“I would say we should wait and take a wait and see approach to see what other cities are going to do to get more data,” said Cantando.

During Public Comments, Mark Jordan suggested that the city should add “growers” as an option on the rental agreements so the city can track the indoor growth. He urged the council to look at the police from an income growing source.

“This is going to be a major cash contributor to the State of California and before we have a knee jerk reaction that no we don’t want any commercial activity, we don’t want any sales, I think we strongly should look at the taxing ability that we would have,” said Jordan.  “I don’t believe we need to be the marijuana capital of California, but I certainly believe we need to look at it from producing revenue for the city of Antioch and have some sort of registration process.”

Councilwoman Monica Wilson stated right now the City needs to be more strict even though voters in Antioch approved Prop 64.

“I feel we need to be a little bit strict right now until we set our zoning codes and conditional use permits while we get the parameters set up so we can acknowledge the vote of our community,” explained Wilson. “For now, we should be a bit more strict in policy and procedure, code until we are up and ready.”

Councilwoman Lori Orgorchock explained how the White Paper on Marijuana Dispensaries are illegal under Federal Law.

“Colorado is not having fun doing this. They are having a lot of illegal activities and troubles doing this,” said Orgorchock. “This is a quality of life issue for me.  The League of Cities posted how many criminals are being let out that were incarcerated and being let out in the State of California. That comes into play. Everyone is talking about billions of dollars. It’s not about the money to me, its about the quality of life we have here in Antioch. Right now, we don’t know enough about this and how it will impact the State of California. Until we understand its going to impact it, we need to do what our sister cities are doing and ban it at this point until we have more information.”

Ogorchock also stated about the real estate comment that she disagreed with Mr. Jordan because if people found out they were allowing this, they may not want it in their backyard.

“It may prompt people to move, it may prompt some of the buys not to buy in Antioch and I don’t want to see our real estate market declining due to the growth of marijuana,” said Ogorchock.

Mayor Pro Tem Lamar Thorpe stated he agreed with the Chief about people may be for marijuana, but they may not want them in their own backyard.

“I voted against this, I just don’t believe in this,” said Thorpe. “But I did see that 65% of the people in Antioch did vote for it. I like the parameters of what the city staff put out about what approach the city should take. Most restrictive versus less restrictive.”

Thorpe went on to say that more people should be involved in this discussion and should go to some of the commissions such as economic development commission. Potentially parks and recreation in limiting outdoor list.

“It’s a larger conversation for the community than just the five of us up here,” said Thorpe. “I respect the fact people did vote for this and they really want us to take a look at this, but I don’t think it’s a conversation absent of the public.”

Mayor Sean Wright stated this was a complicated issue that is not clear cut highlighting Colorado is having a ton of problems.

Tiscareno stated his concern was is this going to be looking at restrictive or less restrictive, he urged the council to look at all options before putting a policy in place and suggested another work session before the council makes a vote.

The council agreed. Staff will come back with a presentation with some potential draft language and broad concepts with different types of regulations with respect to businesses and residential.

The emergency ordinance was adopted 5-0.

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3 comments

The Dude Dec 14, 2016 - 12:21 pm

How many grow houses do you think are in antioch?

Julio Dec 14, 2016 - 2:45 pm

Oh! A whole heck of a lot actually.

Old Pittsburg/Antioch Hwy Border Dec 15, 2016 - 8:49 am

We must tie approval to the crime statistics in this city. When calls for service drop to 500 a week (none drug related) and felonies drop to one a week, then we may be able to say our citizens can handle the responsibility that decision brings upon us all.

MK Ultra Dec 19, 2016 - 1:39 pm

Wake up and smell history folks. This is simply another silly attempt at social control. Politicians aren’t in power to protect and give you more freedoms; they’re in power to curb and mold the opinions of the masses in order to coerce our behavior. If your opinions match your political overlords, you’ve been duped.

Always presenting the cannabis plant in a garbage bag on this site is already your first clue into the social programming…

Comments are closed.