The Santa Barbara City Council on Tuesday denied appeals by locals Pete Dal Bello and Jarrett Gorin that objected to a Milpas Street medical marijuana dispensary.
Councilmen Jason Dominguez, Bendy White, and Randy Rowse were the dissenting votes in the controversial 4-3 decision that upheld the facility’s approval.
The dispensary, to be called Canopy, is planned for 118 N. Milpas St., and would also offer tea, natural herbs, nutritional supplements, and a clothing line. It would serve a maximum of 150 patients a day.
In January, the city’s staff hearing officer approved the permit with a number of conditions, including security for the dispensary, interior signage outlining expected patron behavior, a list of its products and services for the city, and explanations to patients on the waiting period required for obtaining medical marijuana.
Dal Bello and Gorin filed separate but similar appeals to council outlining safety and parking concerns as well as insufficient public notification of hearings.
The appeals also questioned the city staff’s determination that the project is exempt from environmental review since the project includes work on an existing commercial building.
After the dispensary received approval, Dal Bello filed an appeal with the Planning Commission, which went on to unanimously uphold the approval in March.
Dal Bello and Gorin filed their latest appeals March 28, prompting the City Council hearing.
The dispensary project includes interior improvements, minor exterior alterations, and landscaping and sidewalk work. The site has previously been a jewelry store, a motorcycle shop, a towing business, and a stereo/smoke shop.
Dal Bello’s family owns a residential property on Juana Maria Street between East Mason and East Yanonali streets and a commercial building leased to a barber shop across the street from the proposed dispensary.
Gorin submitted his appeal on behalf of two others, neighborhood resident Natasha Todorovic and business owner Santos Guzman.
In his remarks, Dal Bello disputed the dispensary’s not-for-profit status and argued that the dispensary would increase Milpas-area criminal activity.
“Most people that work for the city, including two employees at the January 20 hearing, have no idea what this neighborhood goes through on a daily basis,” he told the council. “But they make decisions for us nonetheless. The city is tone-deaf when it comes to the Eastside.”
Gorin said that his appeal dealt primarily with parking and traffic issues, and criticized a planning process he called “lax and casual” in its regard to examining the dispensary’s traffic and parking impact.
He was somewhat mollified after recent discussion with the applicant regarding new options for street parking.
Ryan Howe, the man behind the dispensary, said the establishment was about community outreach and was more of a wellness center than simply a pot shop.
As part of his allotted speaking time, Howe brought in UC Santa Barbara communications professor Daniel Linz who cited studies concluding that, if anything, crime decreased in areas with dispensaries, due to, one study posited, the security dispensaries tend to have.
Though an educational outreach group supportive of the city’s dispensary ordinance spoke out in favor of the establishment, the vast majority of public comment came down hard against it.
“Why can’t we put it near a hospital?” asked one Eastside resident. “There are so many medical facilities in this town — don’t tell me we can’t find a place. We can’t because the owners are scared to rent it out to them. But that’s not Milpas’ issue or problem.”
Residents argued that the dispensary would degrade a part of town they said had been relegated to be the city’s “dumping ground,” and that the dispensary would impose a dangerous influence on children walking to and from school.
Speakers also railed against what they called an insufficient public notification effort and a flawed dispensary ordinance that helped give rise to the issue at hand.
One issue council grappled with was the police department’s apparent decline to review the dispensary’s security plan — a condition for approval — until Police Chief John Crombach clarified that it had only just been reviewed and given the thumbs up.
Also at issue, particularly for Dominguez, was the “tricky legal landscape” generated by local and state acceptance of medical marijuana and the federal government’s classification of cannabis as a Schedule I drug.
“It’s all about location, location, location,” Dominguez said, arguing that a dispensary on the Eastside is something to shoot for, but is clearly incompatible with the Milpas neighborhood.
Rowse concurred, saying, “we have to respect neighborhood compatibility and neighborhood sanctity.”
Councilmember Gregg Hart cited an entirely different approach to whether or not to deny the appeal.
“We have to apply the law as it exists today,” he said, arguing that a decision should be based on whether or not the dispensary adheres to city ordinances.
As part of its decision to deny the appeal, council directed staff to look into more favorable parking options for the establishment.
Santa Barbara’s municipal code allows three medical marijuana dispensaries, which have to be spread out between different zones of the city.
Last year, a dispensary was approved for the Ontare Plaza on Upper State Street.
A week before the Milpas dispensary’s initial approval, the City Council hurriedly passed an ordinance banning the commercial growth of medical marijuana, which means dispensaries including Canopy will have to purchase pot from outside the city.
The ordinance was in response to new state regulations that gave cities a short window to pass their own ordinances to keep local control over cultivation and delivery rules.
Under the ordinance, people are allowed to grow up to 100 square feet of medical marijuana for personal use.
Santa Barbara used to have four city-permitted dispensaries, including two on Milpas Street, but all four closed up shop in 2012 within a few months of federal raids and the delivery of asset-forfeiture letters to landlords.
–— Noozhawk staff writer Sam Goldman can be reached at sgoldman@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.