STATE
Brown Signs SB 65 Into Law
SB 65 aims at making sure drivers or passengers in vehicles do not smoke or consume marijuana in any form. (Get Patch real-time email alerts for the latest news from your California neighborhood. And iPhone users: Check out Patch’s new app. Also, be sure to follow your local Patch on Facebook!)
“This bill simply makes our laws on using marijuana while driving or riding in cars consistent with our laws on consuming alcohol while driving or riding in vehicles,” Sen. Jerry Hill, a Democrat representing San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, said of the bill he authored.
Hill said SB 65 “enhances” Prop. 64. That proposition, which was approved by California’s voters last November, stipulated that it’s illegal to have open pot containers in vehicles but doesn’t address the use of cannabis by other passengers or in other forms.
“The bill adds marijuana consumption to the law prohibiting alcohol consumption, which is an infraction currently punishable with a base fine of $70,” Hill’s office said.
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Bureau Of Cannabis Control Update – Public Workshop Longbeach Re: California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)
The Bureau of Cannabis Control (Bureau) will hold a public workshop in Long Beach to receive comments regarding the recent release of its California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Initial Study and Proposed Negative Declaration (IS/ND) for its regulatory licensing and enforcement program (Proposed Program) for commercial cannabis distributors, retailers, testing laboratories and microbusinesses.
The overall purpose of the Proposed Program is to establish a regulatory licensing and enforcement program that ensures medicinal and adult-use commercial cannabis activities are performed in a manner that protects the environment, commercial cannabis industry workers, the general public and complies with applicable laws.
Based on the findings of the IS/ND, the Bureau has determined that the Proposed Program would not have any significant effects on the environment.
The Bureau recently made the IS/ND available for public review and will consider public comments regarding the content of the IS/ND. The formal comment period for the IS/ND for the Proposed Program began on September 6 and ends at 5 p.m. on October 6.
WHERE: Long Beach Marriott, 4700 Airport Plaza Drive, Salon A/B, Long Beach, CA
WHEN: Monday, September 18, 2017 from 6 to 8 p.m.
The Bureau will also host community workshop meetings in Fresno on September 20 and Sacramento on September 21. Both meetings will be held from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
More information on the workshop meetings, Initial Study results and Notice of Intent can be found at: http://www.bcc.ca.gov/.
Comments may be emailed to: BCC.CEQAcomments@dca.ca.gov.
For additional information about the Bureau of Cannabis Control, or to subscribe to email alerts to hear about updates as they become available, please visit our website – http://www.bcc.ca.gov/. For information on all three licensing authorities, please visit the state’s cannabis web portal – cannabis.ca.gov.
Follow the Bureau’s Facebook and Twitter accounts at https://www.facebook.com/BMCRinfo and https://twitter.com/BmcrInfo for additional information.
State Senator Wants State Of Emergency Declared Over Illegal Pot Grows
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) – State Sen. Ted Gaines (R-Granite Bay) has asked Gov. Jerry Brown to declare a state of emergency in Siskiyou County over concerns about illegal marijuana grows in his district.“We’ve got a real problem,” Gaines said. “It’s getting worse, especially in the last two years. It’s just way out of hand.”
California bill restricts shape of marijuana edible packaging
California bill restricts shape of marijuana edible packaging
California lawmakers have backed legislation to prohibit the sale of marijuana edibles shaped like a person, animal, insect or fruit.
The bill sent to Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday is an attempt to prevent pot-infused sweets from appealing to children.
Brown vetoed similar legislation earlier this week that sought to define standards for packaging that would not appeal to children. The governor says his administration is working on regulations to packaging and labeling marijuana edibles.
BELMONT
Belmont pot rules take shape ,City officials consider home deliveries alongside tight cannabis restrictions
Belmont officials are moving toward allowing pot deliveries to residences but maintaining a focus on tight restrictions on marijuana-related activities as they work to refine the city’s rules on the new legal industry.
In addition to a ban on recreational and medical cannabis businesses and regulations aimed at stemming the effects of plants grown at private residences —
two measures discussed at a previous City Council meeting — councilmembers debated at their Tuesday night meeting how pot deliveries to residences could unfold.
CLOVERDALE
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/7417034-181/cloverdale-readies-for-cannabis-businesses
Cloverdale is cautiously opening the door to cannabis businesses with a measured approach to the newly legitimized industry.
As the northernmost city in Sonoma County and the closest to the prized marijuana grown in the Emerald Triangle of Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity counties, Cloverdale appears well situated to take advantage of an industry emerging from the shadows.
But Mayor Gus Wolter said the Mayberry-like town of 8,800 residents is “taking baby steps” when it comes to allowing and regulating marijuana businesses.
HERMOSA BEACH
City Council bans recreational marijuana businesses in Hermosa Beach
City Council bans recreational marijuana businesses in Hermosa Beach
LOS ANGELES
LA Expects $50 Million in Local Recreational Marijuana Tax Collection
Los Angeles is scrambling to make sure the City of Angeles soon starts collecting at least $50 million a year as the world’s top spot to buy recreational marijuana.
The countdown clock is ticking down to January 2, 2018, when California joins Nevada, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Massachusetts, Alaska and Washington DC as locations to legally buy marijuana for recreational use.
California state bureaucrats and politicians are almost giddy over the $1.8 billion in annual tax revenue that the New Frontier Financials expects the state will collect from its 15 percent excise and dry-weight taxes
TRINIDAD & BLUE LAKE
Trinidad and Blue Lake to restrict commercial cannabis activities
http://www.times-standard.com/article/NJ/20170914/NEWS/170919902
This week both the Blue Lake and Trinidad city councils discussed banning commercial cannabis activities and requiring permits for personal marijuana grows in their particular jurisdictions.
If the ordinances go through as written, Blue Lake and Trinidad would join Fortuna and Rio Dell, which also restrict commercial cannabis businesses within city limits.
The Trinidad City Council on Wednesday only discussed these possibilities but directed staff to come back with changes in the ordinance during the next regular meeting while the Blue Lake City Council on Tuesday unanimously passed the first reading of its ordinance, according to the cities’ respective city managers.
“We are working to get an ordinance in place before the new calender year,” Trinidad city manager Dan Berman said.
Proposition 64 allows cities and counties to pass law governing marijuana as long as they are in place before 2018, otherwise state laws apply. This is also why Blue Lake is doing this now, city manager Mandy Mager said.
“This is an ordinance to reasonably regulate the personal cultivation of cannabis,” she said.
The second reading of the Blue Lake ordinance will be before the council for a decision at the next regular meeting, Mager said. As written it prohibits outdoor personal cultivation, indoor personal growing without a permit and all — recreational and medical — commercial cannabis activities such as cultivation, processing, manufacturing, transportation and sales, according to the staff report.
“Staff have included an exception to allow medical marijuana deliveries,” the ordinance states.
Berman said the proposed Trinidad ordinance similarly restricts all commercial cannabis activities but right now doesn’t require permits for personal indoor cultivation which is something the council directed staff to add.
“The most significant change the council asked us to work on was to develop language so a permit would be required for personal indoor cultivation,” he said.
Berman said the council wants to ensure all personal grows don’t violate building codes, are hooked into the electrical grid responsibly, don’t use up a the city’s water and don’t waft odors toward neighbors.
“There were some public comments, they were supportive of the direction the city is going,” Berman said.
Mager said the Blue Lake City Council meeting this week lacked anyone in the crowd so no public comments were made. People will have a chance to comment during the second reading of the ordinance at the next regular City Council meeting, she said.
Berman anticipates city staff won’t have the requested changes in the ordinance by the next meeting but people can comment during the preliminary public comment period even if it’s not on the agenda.
“We are aiming to hold the first reading at our regular October [11] meeting,” he said.
The next regular Trinidad City Council meeting is scheduled for Sept. 27 at 6 p.m. in Trinidad Town Hall at 409 Trinity St. The next regular Blue Lake City Council meeting is scheduled for Sept. 26 at 7 p.m. in the Skinner Store Building at 111 Greenwood Road.
More city information and the ordinances as they are currently drafted are available at trinidad.ca.gov and bluelake.ca.gov.
