Christine Green
New Member
Long Beach City Clerk Maria de la Luz Garcia and her staff are counting signatures on petitions turned in last week to put a medical marijuana dispensary initiative on the November ballot.
Larry Kelton and others began circulating the petitions in March, after an effort to open some dispensaries was defeated by the Long Beach City Council. Kelton's ordinance would allow medical marijuana to be grown in the city and to allow a dispensary for every 18,000 residents. It also provides for buffers from schools, allows taxation and sets a number of operation parameters.
Last week, Kelton turned in petitions with an estimated 35,000 signatures. To be valid, the petitions must have 24,904 signatures of residents registered to vote in Long Beach.
Garcia said the first step in the verification process is to hand count every signature submitted.
"If there are enough (signatures), then we'll accept the initiative petition for verification," Garcia said. "We would then take a random sample of 3 percent of the signatures. ... If less than 95 percent were valid, we would reject the petition. Anything between 95 percent and 110 percent, and we would start checking each signature until the 24,904 was reached or we got to the end."
The 110 percent is achieved when the computer program offers more signatures than the actual 3 percent of 747 signatures.
If the petitions are ruled valid, the initiative would go to the City Council. There, the council would have the option to enact the ordinance as written, or put it on the November general election ballot.
Once the raw count is complete, the city clerk has 30 business days to complete the percentage verification. If a full verification is required, another 60 business days are allowed.
Regulation of medical marijuana dispensaries has been an issue in Long Beach pretty much since the state first made use of medical marijuana legal. A first attempt to regulate and open dispensaries used a lottery system to pick operators, and that approach was ruled unconstitutional in 2011. The City Council banned all dispensaries in 2012 while attempting to come up with a new regulating ordinance.
One version was approved in 2014 by the Planning Commission, but could not get past the City Council, which appointed a task force to make recommendations. Last August, that group sent recommendations to the council.
A compromise ordinance was proposed in December, but was derailed when a substitute proposition to only allow delivery without storefronts was approved by a split vote. Then in February, that option was defeated and, without a compromise capable of reaching a majority, the council left the complete ban in place.
A Long Beach ordinance on the Nov. 8 ballot may be competing with at least one statewide initiative to make recreational use of marijuana legal. Petitions with more than 600,000 signatures for that initiative have been turned into the Secretary of State.
News Moderator: Christine Green 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: https://www.presstelegram.com/general...lot-initiative
Author: Harry Saltzgaver
Contact: ptnews@presstelegram.com
Photo Credit: None Found
Website: https://www.presstelegram.com
Larry Kelton and others began circulating the petitions in March, after an effort to open some dispensaries was defeated by the Long Beach City Council. Kelton's ordinance would allow medical marijuana to be grown in the city and to allow a dispensary for every 18,000 residents. It also provides for buffers from schools, allows taxation and sets a number of operation parameters.
Last week, Kelton turned in petitions with an estimated 35,000 signatures. To be valid, the petitions must have 24,904 signatures of residents registered to vote in Long Beach.
Garcia said the first step in the verification process is to hand count every signature submitted.
"If there are enough (signatures), then we'll accept the initiative petition for verification," Garcia said. "We would then take a random sample of 3 percent of the signatures. ... If less than 95 percent were valid, we would reject the petition. Anything between 95 percent and 110 percent, and we would start checking each signature until the 24,904 was reached or we got to the end."
The 110 percent is achieved when the computer program offers more signatures than the actual 3 percent of 747 signatures.
If the petitions are ruled valid, the initiative would go to the City Council. There, the council would have the option to enact the ordinance as written, or put it on the November general election ballot.
Once the raw count is complete, the city clerk has 30 business days to complete the percentage verification. If a full verification is required, another 60 business days are allowed.
Regulation of medical marijuana dispensaries has been an issue in Long Beach pretty much since the state first made use of medical marijuana legal. A first attempt to regulate and open dispensaries used a lottery system to pick operators, and that approach was ruled unconstitutional in 2011. The City Council banned all dispensaries in 2012 while attempting to come up with a new regulating ordinance.
One version was approved in 2014 by the Planning Commission, but could not get past the City Council, which appointed a task force to make recommendations. Last August, that group sent recommendations to the council.
A compromise ordinance was proposed in December, but was derailed when a substitute proposition to only allow delivery without storefronts was approved by a split vote. Then in February, that option was defeated and, without a compromise capable of reaching a majority, the council left the complete ban in place.
A Long Beach ordinance on the Nov. 8 ballot may be competing with at least one statewide initiative to make recreational use of marijuana legal. Petitions with more than 600,000 signatures for that initiative have been turned into the Secretary of State.
News Moderator: Christine Green 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: https://www.presstelegram.com/general...lot-initiative
Author: Harry Saltzgaver
Contact: ptnews@presstelegram.com
Photo Credit: None Found
Website: https://www.presstelegram.com
