Amador County – The Plymouth City Council last month unanimously passed an emergency medical marijuana ordinance, which would place a moratorium on the establishment of marijuana dispensaries in the city, until appropriate city zoning can be determined. City Clerk Gloria Stoddard said the past city ordinance allowed marijuana dispensaries to be located only in industrially zoned areas. But when the city council approved an update to its new General Plan August 13th, it effectively set about the elimination of industrial zoning from the city. The vote November 12th passed an emergency ordinance until either the city updates its zoning ordinances or amends its General Plan with appropriate language. Stoddard said either way the city must update the marijuana dispensary ordinance. City Attorney Steven Rudolph offered the council an “interim urgency ordinance” with which the city council could prohibit “the establishment and operation of medical marijuana dispensaries.” The ordinance, passed on a 5-0 vote, establishes a “45-day moratorium on the establishment of medical marijuana dispensaries within the city.” Rudolph in a report to the council said the temporary ordinance would help by giving “sufficient time for city staff to study and determine which zoning districts, as they are identified in the city’s new General Plan, are most appropriate for the establishment of medical marijuana dispensaries.” He said city code currently allowed medical pot facilities to be established in the city’s light industrial and industrial zones. But the newly adopted General Plan calls for those industrial zones to be rezoned, “and does not provide for the establishment of new industrial zones. A report to the council from legal firm Meyers Nave (Gnaw Vey) of Sacramento said that in October, the Obama administration and the U.S. Department of Justice announced a new policy toward legal handling of medical marijuana growers and users, “those caregivers in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state law.” An October 19th memo from the justice department said medical pot prosecution “is unlikely to be an efficient use of limited federal resources.” The California Legislature passed the state Medical Marijuana Program in 2003 with Senate Bill 420, which regulates the establishment of medical pot facilities. The legal message to Plymouth was that “cultivation of marijuana is still legal for any purpose under federal law,” but “the federal authorities are directed not to use limited resourced to prosecute” people clearly following state medical marijuana law. And “federal authorities will still prosecute serious violations of federal law.” Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.