County official says pot dispensary is operating in violation of
zoning laws along Hwy. 25
In what has become a familiar pattern in the saga of the Purple
Cross Rx medical marijuana dispensary, the operation’s landlord on
Tuesday was sent a cease and desist order by county planning
officials who said the Bolsa Road dispensary is located in a zone
for which it is not approved.
County official says pot dispensary is operating in violation of zoning laws along Hwy. 25
In what has become a familiar pattern in the saga of the Purple Cross Rx medical marijuana dispensary, the operation’s landlord on Tuesday was sent a cease and desist order by county planning officials who said the Bolsa Road dispensary is located in a zone for which it is not approved.
The dispensary’s operator, however, says he is operating within the rules because his business is agricultural.
When Purple Cross opened in downtown Hollister in January 2010, the city of Hollister said the dispensary was operating in defiance of local zoning regulations. The city sued the dispensary and its landlord in an attempt to force it to move, which it finally did in August, just before the matter was set to go to court.
Now, the fight has moved to county land.
“We sent a letter out on Jan. 3 and we’ve had no contact with them since the letter was sent,” said Stacey Watson, a county code enforcement officer. “We got complaints from several neighbors that live in the area, so we sent a notice giving the property owner two weeks to cease all operations on that site because the current zoning doesn’t allow that type of use on it.”
The site, at 1980 Bolsa Road, near Flynn Road on the west side of Hwy. 25, is zoned for agricultural purposes. The dispensary, Watson said, is a commercial or industrial use.
Purple Cross director Scott McPhail said by phone Tuesday that because the county’s zoning rules are “very vague” he is “good there. I’m agricultural.”
“Their rules are what we’re following,” he said. “We qualify as agricultural because we grow (marijuana) on-site. That won’t even be an issue. My argument is that I’m a seasonal stand, and my season is all year round. They do allow seasonal stands without permits.”
After checking on the property Tuesday, Watson planned to send property owner Stan Smith a notice giving him two more weeks to stop Purple Cross from dispensing marijuana, or face a $250 fine. If the dispensary remains in business at the site, fines could eventually approach up to $2,500 per day, Watson said, detailing the next steps in the process:
“We will schedule it for a notice of violation hearing, which will allow us to apply a cloud on the property, which will not allow them to change ownership or title until the violations are cleared,” she said. “The next phase is to send it to the Board of Supervisors for a notice to abate and we can pursue an injunction to get the thing closed.”
The county planning department approved a remodel permit for the Bolsa Road site, “but we haven’t heard from them since,” Watson said. “We couldn’t prohibit giving them a building permit for the remodel because we didn’t know what the business would be.”
The notice to cease and desist operations is sent to the landlord, rather than dispensary operator McPhail. It is the landlord’s duty to make sure his tenants are in compliance with zoning rules.
After its attempted eviction of Purple Cross, the city of Hollister put in place prohibitions against medical marijuana dispensaries in the city limits. San Juan Bautista last May passed an urgency ordinance banning dispensaries and this week voted to make that ban permanent.
The county, however, has no such prohibitions.
“We have no ordinance that prohibits them,” Watson said. “It would have to be directed by the Board of Supervisors for the county to implement” rules specifically banning dispensaries.
She said dispensaries have been filtering southward from San Francisco and San Jose, as operators look to operate in untapped markets or cities and counties without rules specifically banning them.
“My personal opinion is that we’re going to have to have an ordinance to regulate these things, because they’ve started to filter this way,” Watson said.
Purple Cross opened a dispensary in Los Banos in a building owned by former San Benito County Supervisor Richard Scagliotti. After repeated threats of citations by the city and law enforcement officials, that location was recently closed.
McPhail plans to open more medical marijuana dispensaries in other counties, including Santa Clara and Alameda.
“I’m doing the county thing, because it’s a lot more lenient,” he said, noting that he filed permits this week with the County of Santa Clara for a dispensary on agricultural land in the Coyote Valley.
“We’re fine,” he said. “We’re comfortable with our position. We want to see what the county will say we’re doing wrong and we’ll stump them every time.”
