Marijuana facility planned

Dave Brooks

A medical marijuana facility could be coming to Huntington Beach,

just months after the Huntington Beach City Council passed an

ordinance regulating dispensaries.

A group calling itself the AIDS Collective Herb Center plans to

open a medical marijuana dispensary in an industrial park at 15121

Graham St., according to the group’s permit application with the

Huntington Beach Planning Department.

Little information is available about AIDS Collective Herb Center,

the latest name on the application to build the medical marijuana

facility.

Originally, Nancy Barron, 48, of Huntington Beach filed the

application to open the medical marijuana dispensary, but the name

was changed to the Alternative Caregivers Cooperative. On Monday, the

name was changed again.

The facility will be “serving customers medical marijuana that

have the proper documentation,” the application said, operating in an

unmarked 600-square-foot office with a 1,100-square-foot storage

area. The dispensary will be nondescript and hard to differentiate

from surrounding businesses, according to the application. It will be

open from 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. and will be staffed by four employees,

a security guard and an occasional doctor.

The AIDS Collective Herb Center will be leasing the space from

Arden Realty. Company official Chris Nelson did not return several

phone calls for comment.

City Planner Paul Da Veiga said the planning department is

currently reviewing the group’s application, which doesn’t require

approval by the Planning Commission or City Council.

“We’re making sure it meets all the location criteria set in the

code,” Da Veiga said. “If it does, we will go ahead and approve it.”

In March, the City Council enacted an ordinance dealing with

medical marijuana, placing the same zoning restrictions on

dispensaries that were already in place for strip clubs. That means

dispensaries must be located in industrial areas and not come within

500 feet of residential communities, schools or parks, and must be at

least 750 feet away from other pot facilities.

That left only a handful of allowable spaces in Huntington Beach

for dispensaries to operate. The city is currently working on several

rules regulating the operation of medical pot facilities.

“We’re going to try and meet with the people and explain to them

that the city is currently working on several new rules for medical

marijuana dispensaries and we want to ask them to begin following

those rules in advance,” Police Chief Ken Small said.

Most importantly, Small said, the police don’t want people smoking

marijuana at the facility; pot bought at the dispensary should be

used at home, he said. There will also be some requirements involving

proof of prescriptions.

In 1996, state voters approved the first ordinance in the country

to legalize the use of marijuana to treat ailments like glaucoma or

AIDS. The law immediately came under attack from the U.S. Department

of Justice, which argued that the ordinance violated federal

prohibitions on marijuana. Eleven other states have laws allowing the

medical use of marijuana.

A case on the legality of medical marijuana is pending before the

United States Supreme Court. In that case, Raich vs. Ashcroft, the

justices are being asked to decide whether Congress’ ability to

regulate interstate commerce includes the right to restrict patients

from cultivating small plots of medical marijuana for personal use.

If California’s medical pot laws are overturned, the AIDS

Collective Herb Center could be forced to close down.

City Councilman Dave Sullivan said he was concerned that the voter

initiative that legalized marijuana didn’t include language to

regulate the types or amounts of marijuana given out.

“I am concerned any time drugs aren’t distributed by a

pharmacist,” he said. “I don’t know what the qualifications of the

people proposing this facility have.”

City Councilman Don Hansen said the city needs to monitor the

facility. He said he is concerned after hearing reports about

criminal activity occurring in similar clubs in the Bay Area. He said

he has doubts about claims from medical marijuana activists that pot

is widely used for treatment.

“If they’re honest with themselves, they’d admit they’re not

trying to get access for terminally ill patients,” he said. “They’re

just trying to get their buddies easy access to some weed.”