Buellton Council votes to ban marijuana dispensaries

 

 

Members of the Buellton City Council voted 5-0 to adopt an ordinance prohibiting medicinal marijuana dispensaries within the city limits during the regular city council meeting Jan. 24, just after the second reading of the resolution.

During the public comment session, 10 individuals, none of them residents of Buellton, addressed the council, pleading for council members to reconsider the ordinance, table the motion and work with them to allow dispensaries in the city.

No discussion was heard from the public in favor of the resolution.

 

The public speakers included Dr. Thomas A. Safuni of Orcutt. Safuni said marijuana is “as safe as peanut butter and less dangerous than the sugar you put in your coffee.”

He said “most” of the military troops coming home from duty in Iraq suffer from a “nasty medical condition” that is only helped with medical marijuana. During a second time at the podium, he offered to help council members put together a resolution that would allow for a dispensary in the area.

Cheryl Davis of Santa Maria talked about how medical marijuana has enabled her to return to work after a bout with shingles, and how her husband’s last few months while he was dying of cancer was made “more comfortable because he was able to use medical marijuana to alleviate his pain.”

 

James Pacheco, also of Santa Maria, described 17 surgeries that he has had over the years and said the only way he was able to return to work was because he’s been taking medical marijuana, which helps him deal with his “constant pain.”

Thomas J. Gray, an attorney from Los Angeles, representing the owners of Hezekiah dispensary, a business in Buellton that was raided by federal authorities and closed in July, 2007, said the staff report about crime in the region attributed to marijuana, “contained several inaccuracies.”

He detailed the events of last summer surrounding the dispensary’s closure, and insisted that his client, Steven Allbritton of Santa Maria, the owner of Hezekiah, had not been convicted of any felony violations.

 

Gray said that without a dispensary in the area, people who needed medical marijuana “could be forced to go underground and find their medicine on the streets.”

He acknowledged that it would be difficult to find a place to rent or lease because of the federal statues against marijuana, but that he and his client are looking forward to working out that problem once dispensaries are allowed in the area.

He added, after coming to the podium a second time, “I understand the skepticism you may have concerning the concept about medical marijuana and problems that seem to come with it,” but denying people access to “this substance” prevents “those patients who deserve a means of attaining their medicine in safety,” no alternative but to buy from “underground” dealers.

 

Shirley-Ann Graceville, owner of Grace Delivery, said she has a delivery service to take medical marijuana to people who cannot pick up their own medication and that it would be an “injustice for her delivery service and the people” she serves if there were no dispensaries in Buellton. She said it’s “unfair that 52 percent of the voters in California” voted to have medical marijuana and yet the council in Buellton did not appear to favor Proposition 215. She said it was “unconstitutional” that such a thing could happen in California. “You are forcing us to go back onto the streets to get our medication,” she stated.

Dan Christensen of Santa Maria said he has had to drive all the way to Santa Barbara to pick up his medical marijuana because there is no closer dispensary.

He said he “wouldn’t be alive without medical marijuana and that it’s a good thing I’m alive because I’ve been caring for an orphan who was recently recognized as the youngest Rhodes scholar since Bill Clinton, so I’ve contributed greatly to the world to solve its problems, which I wouldn’t have been able to do without medical marijuana.”

Allbrighton, who spoke twice, said he founded Hezekiah as a “non-profit Christian prayer organization” to help people who need medical marijuana.

 

He detailed his experience of working with the staff at Buellton City Hall when he was trying to get a building permit to upgrade the facilities at Hezekiah.

“They basically told me to take a walk,” he said, “when all I was trying to do was provide for the safety of my clients.

“My clients are sick and dying people. We serve them with prayer and medicine and help them get off the street.

“Many of them can testify how, by the grace of Jesus Christ, they were saved by medical marijuana and our help.”

Edward Connanghton of Santa Ynez said that he supported all dispensaries for medical marijuana and that it was “absurd that people would have to drive up to 40 miles to fill a prescription from a physician.”

He added that the Council would probably approve the proposed fast food outlet in Buellton and that would be “in spite of the fact that more people die of high cholesterol than from using marijuana.”

 

Zulema Allbritton of Santa Maria said she is a caregiver and worked with sick people who received their medicine from Hezekiah, where she used to work. “There were a lot of sick people, people with cancer, others who would come in wheelchairs, some on oxygen, others handicapped in some way, and they were only there for their medicine,” she said. “I felt their pain. They told me they were now able to hold their food down and be normal.

“You don’t know how many people it has helped to be normal and get back to work.”

After all the public comment, Mayor pro tempore Dale Molesworth made a motion to accept the resolution as it was written, banning medical marijuana dispensaries within the city limits, and, without any further discussion by council members, the motion was seconded and passed.

In other matters, the council accepted a resolution authorizing the city manager, Steve Thompson, to submit an application to Caltrans to fund a bikeway and trails master plan. Judi Staufrer of Buellton, representing Buellton Is Our Town, said she “strongly supports” the resolution and is looking forward to seeing bike trails created in Buellton in the near future.

The council also voted 5-0 to not waive a portion of the fees charged to Robert Perry for his appeal to the council against a permit issued to All American Trailers-North, which now operates at 653 Avenue of Flags. The total fee for the appeal was $991.40. Perry initially paid a $660 deposit and was not allowed a request for the remainder to be waived until the final $331.40 had been paid.

 

The final amount was paid under protest on Jan. 15 and the waiver request was placed before the council as an agenda item. Staff recommended that the fee was reasonable considering the amount of work required to research the appeal and that it not be waived.

An annual report from the Buellton Recreation Department was postponed and will be presented at a future council meeting.

 

The next city council meeting will be Feb. 14 at 6 p.m. at the Buellton City Council Chambers, 140 W. Highway 246, Buellton.