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Planners want ban on medical pot shops

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Ramona Community Planning Group is preparing to ask the county to ban medical marijuana collectives, following in the footsteps of the Julian planning group.

Ramona and other unincorporated areas are becoming sought-after spots for medical marijuana dispensaries and cultivation. The first of possibly five such facilities in Ramona, at 1210 Olive St., could be opening soon.

“Olive is probably going to be the first,” Detective Mike Helms with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department licensing division, told Ramona planners at their Feb. 4 meeting. “They’re probably three weeks out from obtaining their operating certificate.”

Helms also said the applicant for a medical marijuana collective for 2471 Montecito Road is trying to move property lines so the site will be the required 1,000 feet from 736 Montecito Way, which is pending an operating certificate for a collective.

“Isn’t that kind of skirting the rules?” asked Jim Piva, planning group chair.

County ordinance states that dispensaries and cultivation sites must be on industrial-zoned parcels, 1,000 feet from schools, recreation and youth centers, churches, playground parks and residential zoning. In its latest list of identified sites in unincorporated areas that meet the criteria, the county has noted 19 parcels in Ramona.

An operating certificate, which is issued by the sheriff’s department once the building requirements have been signed off, is also pending for 618 Pine St. where the applicant is proposing to build a steel structure for cultivation in addition to the dispensary.

Helms said there are medical marijuana collectives proposed for Julian and El Cajon, and one in Valley Center is in its build-out phase.

He also said the Santa Ysabel casino is being used for medical marijuana cultivation by a group leasing the building from the Indian tribe.

“We, as as board, have been consistently against,” said Piva.

Concerns include impaired drivers traveling the curvy roads in and out of Ramona and marijuana getting into the hands of youths.

Piva said the Julian Community Planning Group is trying to get the county to ban the collectives, and he will be contacting the chair.

Although the state’s Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act that went into effect Jan. 1 included a March 1 deadline for cities or counties to adopt ordinances banning or regulating medical marijuana licenses or else the state would have sole licensing authority, that deadline was removed in Assembly Bill 21, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown on Feb. 3.

Planner David Ross, a sergeant with the sheriff’s department, suggested the Ramona planning group jump on board with Julian.

Ross said that during his 27 years in law enforcement he has talked to 500 to 1,000 youths who were heroin addicts and said they started with marijuana. Ross, who acknowledged he is passionate about the subject because of what he has seen in his career, said marijuana is a gateway drug.

Other reasons he gave for a ban were such collectives possibly precluding “good businesses” from coming into town, and that cultivators often use chemicals and pesticides that could be dumped on Ramona land.

“I’ve raided hundreds of dispensaries and law enforcement...had to call Hazmat in to get rid of these chemicals,” he said.

“So I think we should jump on board with the fight and do everything we can to keep them from coming up. At least make the county aware that we are keeping tabs on this stuff,” said Ross.

Planners unanimously agreed to create a committee with Ross and planners Jim Cooper, Rick Terrazas and Kristi Mansolf, who will prepare a letter to the county for the group’s review at the March 3 meeting.

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