The proposed dispensary is to be located in a commercial space in the Riverside Professional Building.
Ryan lely/Sonoma Valley Sun
Some members of the Sonoma City Council were not happy that County Supervisor Valerie Brown is reportedly trying to drag them into a hot-button issue that may be none of their business. “Why would we weigh in on a subject in which we have no involvement?” asked council member Joanne Sanders at the city council meeting last Wednesday.
The issue is the siting of a medical marijuana dispensary in Sonoma Valley. The location presently proposed is just outside the city limits, in the former Nicholas Turkey facility at 19445 Riverside Drive, across the Ig Vella bridge at the end of West Napa Street.
Creekside Medicinal Organics, owned by Northbay Wellness Group in Santa Rosa, has submitted a permit application to the county’s Permit and Rescourse Management Department, but the application has not been processed, according to Lisa Guygax, an attorney representing the applicant. It was filed almost six months ago, on April 20 (coincidentally, “4-20” is a slang term for marijuana). She told the council at its meeting that Brown says the city of Sonoma is holding it up, since the city has not responded to a request from the dispensary for a resolution backing the proposal.
According to the city’s staff report for the agenda item, the proposed use “does not involve a (city) General Plan amendment or rezoning, and … it does not appear to have any adverse impacts on conditions with the City of Sonoma (e.g. traffic impacts).”
Mayor Stanley Cohen said he did not see this as city council business. “I am not willing to go over borders. I am not prepared to do what the county does not want to do.”
Brown in a telephone interview Monday said that she is opposed to the dispensary’s proposed location, saying it “is too close to residential areas.” However, she bristled at the suggestion that this is a touchy issue she’d prefer to avoid in an election year. “I would have no reason to (have anyone else) weigh in where I am totally capable of making a decision.”
Thus far, the Sonoma City Council has chosen not to decide. With council members noting that they had not yet adopted a permitting policy for dispensaries within their own city limits, they were especially reluctant to make any recommendation to the county.
Meanwhile, city council member Ken Brown said that until a local dispensary can be opened, “People (who need medical marijuana) are suffering. It’s cruel.”
