Petaluma council discusses pot-growing regulations

Larger-scale marijuana cultivation in Petaluma’s residential neighborhoods has become a sticky issue for residents, prompting the Petaluma City Council to hash out the framework of possible restrictions on the practice during a special workshop on Monday.

The proposed ordinance would ban the outdoor growing of marijuana that some city residents said is creating a pungent nuisance in their neighborhoods. It would also set a 100-square-foot limit on the space that could be allocated to growing medical marijuana, along with a cap on electricity use and a ban on the use of gas products like carbon dioxide and butane.

Monday’s discussion provided a glimpse of the likely new rules to come.

“It takes it out of the backyards, reducing theft and visibility,” said John Brown, Petaluma’s city manager.

In places like Petaluma that lack a local ordinance, qualified medical marijuana patients can possess as many plants as a physican recommends, said Petaluma Police Chief Patrick Williams. Recreational use remains illegal under both state and federal law, though California voters are expected to pass a law to allow recreational use in the state in 2016.

Absent a specific ordinance, Petaluma’s medicinal pot growers are subject to prosecution by the Sonoma County District Attorney’s office, which Williams said is more likely to focus its energies on going after a “grand, sophisticated criminal enterprise” than a neighborhood grower stretching the rules.

“Access is not the issue,” said Williams, speaking of medical marijuana. “The greater issue is the bad things that happen in our neighborhoods as a result of unfettered access and zero regulation.”

Some growers increase their volume of plants by operating on behalf of several patients, yet police estimate fewer than 20 percent of growers in Petaluma to be in compliance with state guidelines, Williams said. A local cultivation ordinance would give police greater leverage to investigate the legitimacy of growers and prosecute violators through the authority of Petaluma’s city attorney.

Williams listed a litany of issues around marijuana since 2010: five marijuana cultivation-connected fires, 51 complaints for code enforcement, 52 narcotics arrests related to marijuana, seven robberies and seven home invasions involving guns. Yet he said his department was not looking to take a heavy-handed approach.

“Our goal is compliance,” he said.

Legitimate or not, neighborhood growers in Petaluma are ruffling feathers. Leone Gannon, an east side Petaluma resident for 35 years, said a neighbor’s large backyard marijuana growing operation has had a negative impact on the quality of life for her and her husband.

“We don’t smell our roses. All we smell are skunks,” she said.

Councilwoman Kathy Miller said she also has a neighbor with a sizable backyard growing operation, and echoed those concerns.

“It smells. It’s a nuisance,” said Miller, who supported a requirement for indoor growing. “It don’t like going outside at six o’clock in the morning to get my paper, and that’s the first thing I get a whiff of.”

While most council members agreed to the idea of requiring all growing to occur indoors, Councilwoman Teresa Barrett said such limits were moving opposite of a broader trend toward the easing of restrictions on marijuana in California and throughout the country as a whole.

“We’re taking a very regressive view on this. This is not the way our state is going,” said Barrett, who expressed favor toward a limited allowance for outdoor growing. “We need to find a solution that honors, as much as we can, the needs of people with legitimate medical needs to get their medicine.”

The workshop did not focus on the issue of brick-and-mortar marijuana dispensaries in Petaluma, which have been banned in the city since 2007. With the expected legalization of recreational marijuana use, City Attorney Eric Danly said cities currently appeared poised to maintain the ability to ban those businesses.

Still, the dispensary ban appears likely to come up in the future in the evolving legal and cultural perspective on marijuana.

“I think we should allow them, and tax the heck out of them,” said Councilman Gabe Kearney.

An ordinance on marijuana cultivation is expected to be considered for adoption by the council in approximately six weeks, Brown said.

(Contact Eric Gneckow at eric.gneckow@arguscourier.com. On Twitter @Eric_Reports.)