Click video to play. Problems on iPhone? Turn your phone sideways.

Some changes are in the works for medical cannabis regulations in Eureka after Tuesday night’s council meeting.

The Eureka City Council approved its current regulations this past fall, specifying what types of cannabis activities will be allowed and where and what types of permits would be required. Since then, prospective cannabis businesses are looking to make Eureka their home.

“Currently we have about 17 or 18 applications in for various types of cannabis businesses — everything from transport to a dispensary and so on,” said Eureka City Manager Greg Sparks.

However he says with two new council members and unanswered questions floating around, “we really wanted to come back and revisit with council on a couple of issues.”

In this LoCO Video Report we find out more about council’s decisions to distinguish testing labs from research and development facilities in the permit process, restrict non-volatile manufacturing of cannabis products in the downtown area (still allowed in other zones), and to keep permits open for volatile manufacturing, which is only zoned industrial and includes extraction labs for butane honey oil.

And although BHO labs are notorious for explosions, Sparks says the idea is to “drive out the black market.”

It was the hot topic of the discussed changes.

Kevin Mark Dolan, co-founder of BHOgart, a San Jose-based company which sells industrial extraction equipment in Eureka, adds “We think it’s important that they allow it to be done in a legal and safe fashion so it can be regulated and controlled.”

The ordinance will be adjusted and brought back to council at a later date for the first reading.