Calif. Supreme Court upholds Riverside pot ban
The city of Riverside’s ban on storefront medicalmarijuana dispensaries is perfectly legal, according to a ruling today by theCalifornia Supreme Court, which unanimously affirmed the authority of anymunicipality to declare that pot distribution facilities “will not bepermitted.”
The court’s 44-page ruling was in response to an appeal by Inland EmpirePatients Health and Wellness Center Inc., which sought to challenge zoningregulations put in place in Riverside prohibiting cannabis clubs or collectivesfrom operating outlets where individuals with prescriptions for medicalmarijuana could purchase it.
Around 200 jurisdictions throughout California have such bans on theirbooks, including Riverside County and the inland cities of Corona, Hemet,Moreno Valley, Murrieta, Norco, Rancho Mirage, Redlands, San Bernardino, SanJacinto, Temecula and Wildomar.
The Riverside case was argued in February. Five other cases stemmingfrom challenges to regulations against medical marijuana dispensaries are stillpending before the court.
At the heart of the plaintiffs’ arguments is that voter-approvedProposition 215 — the Compassionate Use Act of 1996 — guaranteed qualifyingpatients access to marijuana for treatment of illnesses, but cities andcounties were stymieing those efforts and trying to preempt state law withlocal ordinances.
The court observed in its decision that the Inland Empire PatientsHealth and Wellness Center believes Riverside’s “total ban on facilities thatcultivate and distribute medical marijuana … is in conflict with” theCompassionate Use Act and the Medical Marijuana Program.
“We disagree,” the justices’ ruling states. “Nothing … expressly orimpliedly limits the inherent authority of a local jurisdiction to regulateits own land, including the authority to provide that facilities for thedistribution of medical marijuana will not be permitted to operate within itsborders.”
The Medical Marijuana Program, adopted by the Legislature in 2004,offered protections for legitimate medical marijuana recipients and theircaregivers, but left it to local governments to determine what types ofcannabis facilities are permitted.
Generally, patients and their primary caregivers, who have beenfurnished a prescription from a qualified physician and have county-issuedcards identifying them as authorized medical marijuana users or providers, areallowed to possess eight ounces of dried marijuana and can maintain six maturecannabis plants, or a dozen immature ones.
Dispensaries often sell a variety of cannabis products, from pre-rolledcigarettes to brownies.
The court’s ruling footnotes a Senate Committee on Public Safety studyfinding that storefront dispensaries are routine targets for “robberies andburglaries” and that the facilities “affect the neighborhood quality of lifeby attracting loitering and marijuana smoking on or near the premises.”
The Riverside ordinance prohibiting dispensaries cites the federalControlled Substances Act, which does not make allowances for the use ofmarijuana, even for medicinal reasons.
The wellness center opened its doors in early 2009 at 647 N. Main St.and was ordered closed by the city in May 2010 after it was declared a publicnuisance.
