City attorney hampers efforts to have South Lake Tahoe voters decide pot initiative
Updated Dec. 4, 4:15pm: City Attorney Tom Watson has given the title and summary to Steve Kubby.
By Kathryn Reed
While hundreds of hours, including multiple public meetings, were spent devising South Lake Tahoe’s medical marijuana ordinance, there is an effort under way to tweak the law that is on the books.
Steve Kubby, a local medical marijuana advocate, wants the voters in the city to have the opportunity to revise the ordinance. This is the second time he has started the ballot process. The first time was aborted in early 2012 when he planned to move to Canada. Those plans changed and he has resumed his quest to alter the language of the law.
But it has hit a few roadblocks on the way to the June ballot. City Attorney Tom Watson last week said he would not write the title and summary for the initiative, which is required before signatures can be sought.
A flurry of emails was exchanged during the weekend and through Monday between Kubby, Watson, City Manager Nancy Kerry and Mayor Tom Davis. Kubby told Lake Tahoe News he received a call from a city official Dec. 3 saying in all likelihood Watson would issue the title and summary some time today. This would still allow time for the question to be posed to voters in June.
If this happens, it will be the second time this week Watson has done a 180 regarding title and summaries. Late last month he said “no” to writing the documents for the group wanting a paid parking question on the ballot. At the time he told Lake Tahoe News he could not be an advocate for that group. However, on Dec. 3 he summoned Tahoe4Tahoe members to his office.
“The topic of discussion was refining the petition request to be resubmitted for the title and summary that the city attorney is required by law to provide the petitioners. The meeting was productive and the committee remains focused on getting this issue in front of the voters for the June ballot,” Peggy Bourland of Tahoe4Tahoe told Lake Tahoe News.
Watson did not return a call to LTN. Lake Tahoe News sent Watson a series of questions on Dec. 1 to which he has not responded. These are the questions:
• Can you tell me if you have had to deal with Title and Summary issues before you came to South Lake Tahoe? If so, did you ever write one? If yes, what was different about those compared to the two that just came before you?
• If you have not dealt with Title and Summary issues before, was your decision for the two recent decisions made on your own or did you consult others? If you consulted others, who did you consult?
• What would the two SLT petitioners need to do to get you to write a Title and Summary? What is stopping you from helping them get the verbiage correct for you to write the Title and Summary?
• On the marijuana issue, how can one city attorney say yes one year and another say no to almost the identical wording nearly two years later?
The law states that the city attorney “shall” write the title and summary. In other words, he must. If passed by the voters, it can always be challenged in court if someone believes it violates the law.
“We are presenting an alternative to the current policy which we believe is illegal and unconstitutional and overly oppressive for patients,” Kubby said of his initiative.
His initiative would allow the market to determine the number of dispensaries and delivery services that could operate in the city, reduce fines, not mandate people disclose they are growing marijuana, increase rules regarding odor and limit local law enforcement working with federal agents.
The last item could be where a legal challenge would arise.
The exact wording is, “Elected, appointed, hired employees, officers, and officials of the city of South Lake Tahoe shall not directly or indirectly cooperate with or assist federal, state, or county officers or officials, volunteers, or employees who eradicate marijuana, act for seizure or forfeiture, or demand entry without a warrant or to defeat any liberally construed purpose of this act, nor may any state or local agency contract to eradicate marijuana that is being grown, manufactured or stored under the provisions of this act. Knock and talk shall be the first act taken by the above officers/employees. Violation of this clause shall be a misdemeanor, punishable by fine and up to one year in prison.”
While Kubby worked on the ordinance that is on the books along with the three operators of the collectives that were open at the time and the former city attorney and manager, he was under the impression certain items would be removed. They weren’t.
Kubby said he believes the current ordinance has negative health and safety consequences for people who use and grow marijuana for medicinal purposes.
Here is a copy of the revised ordinance Kubby is proposing.
I have read the proposed ballot initiative. I personally see two matters for concern. In section B, 3, any odor caused by smoking marijuana is not controlled or banned by the ballot initiative. Within this section I see that a serious odor problem could arise that could become a serious problem to neighbors of a dispensary. If a dispensary allows marijuana smoked frequently within the premises, the odor is allowable, and the city is not permitted to act in prevention of the odor, thus my objection to this section. In section B, 14, signs posted at dispensaries, may or may not be controlled by the city. These dispensaries can be at a person’s house in a residential district. I must oppose any sign posted in front of anyone’s house identifying the house as a marijuana dispensary. If signs were prohibited in residential neighborhoods, I could accept section 14; But at present, I cannot.
The current mmj laws were a back room deal struck between the dispensary owners and our city council members. It does not represent the will of the people. It requires patients to give up their 5th amendment rights, it has put hundreds of ppl out of jobs and it ensures that criminals and dispensary owners get rich.
City council was duped into making a sweet deal for the dispensary owners, may I remind everyone that two of the dispensary owners they struck this deal with have subsequently been arrested for felonies. It’s time the voters of SLT make their own determinations on this matter.
Offensive odor is subjective. No other smells that offend are mitigated or made illegal, for instance: too much perfume, smoke from fires, diesel, snowmobiles, cigarette smoke and STPUD operations. The extremely subjective nature of smell may not be controllable through legislation. And to ask law enforcement to make subjective judgements is unfair to them. If you use odor as a deal breaker, no law is going to work, but that may be what you want. No one wants bad smells but how much regulation are you willing to pay for?
The more citizens and voters have actual direct input into the way their lives are governed, the better. Who can object to the results of a vote of the people being governed?
The City Council has a long and checkered history of making poor decisions, costly mistakes, and regretful actions.
Apparently, lots of people can object to the results of a majority vote. For instance, Congress…
If the supporters of this initiative think that the smell of growing pot isnt an issue than they dont live in my neighborhood. There is no need for signs saying who is growing or processing pot, all they have to do is walk past a few select houses and it becomes obvious.
Steve, to legislate law responsibly, one must consider unintended consequences. You haven’t thought through some unintended consequences that may result from your initiative. This initiative allows the marijuana dispensaries in residential homes beside us home owners. I do object to any law that violates the rights of property owners. If this were to be passed, I would still object to it, just as I would object to a zoning change that would allow a liquor store to operate beside my home. You may receive plenty of support now, but when the property owners cast their votes, I think this is going down.
While I think the city attorney seems very out of line, and deserves some sort of censure, I do not think South Lake Tahoe needs to be in the business of facilitating medical Pot. We actually had, in a city of under 30K people, three separate pot stores, one of them obviously run by a crook.
Is this the “industry” we need to be looking to expand?
Does nobody remember the Terry Trupp debacle, when sufficient questions were not asked.
Put it on the ballot, but also put an option to close down all pot shops within one year. Let the people decide.
Expanding on the subject : A vote cannot constitutionally subject the rights of citizen’s to jeopardy. Steve, you are a constitutionalist and must understand my point here. You cannot vote down a right of citizens. If we could, we would have mob rule. You are here treading very closely to, or crossing the line, voting down the rights of home owners whom may be effected by any marijuana dispensary beside their home. Zoning laws protect the rights of property owners by not allowing businesses to move into residential neighborhoods. In my opinion, if the city counsel allowed medical marijuana dispensaries into residential neighborhoods, they did so unconstitutionally. Why ? Because this violated the rights of the property owners to enjoy their property in the customary way. The same would be true if a pig farm were allowed into a zoned residential neighborhood. To do this right, you need to be reasonably sure you are not violating the rights of other citizens.
The City Council would likely not favor citizen voter initiatives… as the next vote someone might introduce could be that vacation rentals, as a commercial business, be prohibited in single-family zoned residential neighborhoods, as they were before TRPA realized its own prohibition of such and quickly changed its rules to accommodate the City.
Next could be redevelopment, followed by the airport, city pensions, parking garage, taxing Heavenly, plastic bags, and so on.
The City could find itself with its hands full of voter initiatives it did not like in no time.
Observer: yes, I remember Terry Trupp. It had nothing to do with medical marijuana, citizens’ voting on the law or city attorneys’ alleged denial of legal procedures. I honestly don’t see the comparison.
As far as expanding an industry, I think that you should consider the fact that the law was changed (through voting) to allow the use of medical marijuana by citizens. Why should a municipality be allowed to restrict citizens from exercising their rights under the law? Indeed, there are abuses of the law, but shouldn’t the law focus on the abusers and not on the citizens who are simply exercising their rights?
Interesting topic and civil discussion. Excellent.
BTW, reading the proposed ordinance, there is no indication that odor is not considered a serious issue. It is actually written into the ordinance, with consequences and a plan of action, though there are the words “order” and “odor” under section B that may be confusing to some.
Nothing in this initiative authorizes dispensaries in residential areas and the City has the right to ban any and all signage as well, so the impact on the community will really be quite minimal. Does our community really need another industry, based on medical marijuana? We think our initiative will create at least 100 jobs and dump a minimum of $10 million a year into our local economy. Landlords can forbid cultivation on their property OR they can agree to allow it, for a 50% increase in rent. Most patients I know would agree to higher rent in return for authorization to grow in the garage. Time will tell if medical marijuana can save our local economy, but if we don’t at least try, we may wake up one day and find SLT has become a ghost town.
Fyi….Thomas Watson was interviewed and will be on ch 12 s high sierra report on charter cable and lake tahoe tv at 430 and 730 pm today. He answers some of the questions above.
Some of these pontificating wannabe lawyer observations and resulting jail house “legal” conclusions are hilarious, fact-free nonsense. People should know that this is not Steve’s 1st med. marijuana rodeo. They should see the “Kubby Plan” in its entirety before ignorantly parsing its language in the ballot initiative.
http://www.indec.com/1-7016