The Eureka City Council is scheduled to enact a temporary citywide ban on commercial cultivation of medical marijuana at its next meeting, Tuesday night. The agenda item is on the consent calendar, meaning it’s not scheduled to be debated but rather simply passed. It would amend the city’s municipal code to outlaw commercial growing while still allowing qualified patients to grow their own.

According to the staff report on the item, the City is motivated time-wise by the March 1, 2016, deadline included in Assembly Bill 243, despite the fact that the bill’s author, Assemblymember Jim Wood, recently assured local jurisdictions that the date was inserted in the bill by mistake and won’t impact their ability to enact local regulations indefinitely.

Regardless, the City is aiming to enact the ban in order to give staff time to rectify a “potential legal issue” found in the existing municipal code. The problem, the report says, is that the City never got the California Coastal Commission to sign off on the weed regulations passed back in 2010. 

The five-year-old City Code Chapter 158 regulates cultivation, processing and distribution of medical marijuana citywide, including within the state’s coastal zone. And since the Coastal Commission has jurisdiction over that zone, which in Eureka includes the waterfront and portions of Old Town, it must certify local regulations that apply there.

Staff is concerned that unless the City enacts a ban on all commercial cultivation, the slow wheels of state government will cause Eureka to miss that questionable March 1 deadline.

Existing regulations allow for up to four cultivation/processing and associate distribution facilities, along with two more standalone distribution sites, though an invitation-only conditional use permit is required to operate such facilities. Earlier this year a Medical Cannabis Selection Committee conducted interviews to see who the City might want to invite, but staff is now suggesting that process be put on hold.

Staff also wants to tweak the local definitions of “cultivation” and “processing” to make sure they’re in line with the new state laws taking effect in 2016.

On December 14, the Eureka Planning Commission approved some proposed changes to the city’s weed regulations for the same reason — to make them consistent with the pending state laws.

The staff report acknowledges Wood’s assurances that the March 1 date is nothing to worry about because he plans to submit an urgency ordinance erasing it come the new legislative term, but like a majority of the county Board of Supervisors, staff suggests a “better safe than sorry” approach:

“If the City were to decide not to ban cultivation now, and the urgency legislation did not pass [in the state legislature], the City would lose control over licensing of commercial cultivation of medical cannabis,” the report says.

The council meeting is scheduled to start at 6 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall.