Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by adding section 5.90.290 related to local enforcement and penalties for illegal marijuana businesses, read and adopted as read.  (Citywide)
Motion carries. 25. Communication from city attorney recommendation or clear ordinance, amending the Long Beach Municipal Code related to local enforcement and penalties for illegal marijuana businesses. Read for the first time and lead over to the next regular meeting of the City Council for Final Reading Citywide. Councilman Price. Mr. Vice Mayor. So I've had the probably should have went to staff, but I thought this was yours. I should probably go to Stafford. That's crazy. Thank you. City manager, vice mayor, members of the City Council. On May 2nd, the council requested that our office prepare an ordinance, and we did so amending Chapter 5.9 of the municipal code. And we believe that this proposed ordinance will assist the city in its efforts in conjunction with the enforcement remedies already available to the city to ensure compliance with 5.9 and hopefully discourage illegal operations related to medical marijuana dispensaries. Very quickly, the ordinance we have added, the ordinance did declare non licensed facilities a public nuisance. And so we have added in the ordinance in the discretion of the court to issue a maximum civil penalty of up to $5,000 per day per violation for those illegal dispensaries. We do talk about and authorize the disconnection of utilities after following all the proper procedures. The criminal penalties we believe, were already in place. And so this ordinance at this time does not impose additional or further criminal penalties. And we also have additional enforcement tools allowing us to to institute a one year ban or end up to a five year ban. And with that, we're open for questions. I would like to thank Monica Goleta, deputy city attorney, who was who wrote the ordinance and did a lot of work on it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. City. Attorney Councilwoman Price. Thank you. I, too, want to thank the city attorney's office and Monica specifically for working on this. I think the ordinance includes all the components that our report requested and the agenda item, initial or agenda item requested. So there are civil penalties associated with it. There is a punishment for the commercial property owner who's leasing to an illegal dispensary. There's the opportunity to get involved with the operation of of utilities at the site, which will hopefully discourage illegal operators. In short, I think that the statute covers all the different aspects that were raised and all the areas of concern. And obviously, once we've implemented the statute, if new situations arise and that's obviously something we can go back and modify or amend our statute to deal with any trends that we might be seeing or may not have anticipated. Again, the genesis of this item is that illegal dispensaries or illegal businesses in general doesn't just have to be dispensaries, illegal businesses, and especially illegal marijuana businesses, because there are several categories of marijuana businesses that will be permitted in the city of Long Beach. Those illegal operations are a disservice to the residents. There's no quality of life regulations that are in place at an illegal operation to ensure that quality of life concerns and issues are accounted for. They're unfair to the legal operators who are paying taxes and incurring the costs associated with following the regulations that the city and the state have set for them. And they're obviously very detrimental to the city because the costs of enforcing our existing laws, state and local regulations, is very burdensome for the city and can cost the city millions of dollars per site, as we have seen from past experience. So thanks to the city attorney's office for for giving this ordinance to us to consider tonight, and I think you did a fantastic job giving us a great start that we can modify later as situations present themselves. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Ewing. Thank you, Ms.. Mayor. And I want to agree with Councilmember Price and all the concerns that are out there regarding the illegal activities in illegal dispensaries. I think it's very important even those individuals who are planning to have legal dispensaries applied and want to get some business going here would agree with with this ordinance. They also would would support something like this in order for them to be able to operate legally, which is the total effort that we're trying to do here. So I'm totally supportive of this ordinance. When I thank the city attorney for putting this together, I think it is going to work very well for the city of Long Beach. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Andrews. Yes, thank you, Mayor. Councilman Price, I think that this all of a sudden finally we got some tooth and nail to this ordinance, because I know when we came to it the first U.S. on the diocese at that time, but it was really hard to get to those individuals who were illegal. But now I think that this will let them know when you talk about $5,000 fine, that will let them individuals know. I don't know how much money they'll be making, but that will at least make them understand that we are serious about the illegal operation of the marijuana. And thank you again for bringing us and especially our city attorney putting us together. Thank you again. Thank you. Is there any public comment on this item? Please come forward. You have 3 minutes. Very good who Kirk has the. I won't go into all the details that I referenced last time the subject came up. These would be the fact that the Long Beach Police records. Incontrovertibly. It will show that the landlord for that property has been highly irresponsible and has provided, in essence, a sanctuary for extraordinarily violent criminals. Signet. Syndicate. Syndicate. Period. No trier of fact will ignore that. And I know the city attorney may have given thought. Some flock to this issue. But I think it and the council failed to think about that, which you did not think about. All right. And I'll be going into more of those details later. But essentially, you established areas where you felt it was inappropriate to have that type of activity. But what you failed to consider is the roots that those same individuals that you're trying to protect more often than not on a daily basis. Walk. Like. Scooter. Right past. Period. And that's something I admonish you to. To do that and to consider that. And speaking of and banishment, I think if my math and history is right, we're about nine days short. You know, nine days shy of an admonishment that you might consider, i.e., that one that was admonished by highly, slightly . 30 years ago at the end of this month. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. Seven more. Sincerely a second district. I wanted to speak on behalf in support of this particular measure. It's a great, solid piece of legislation that provides clear guidelines and explicit consequences for those who are choosing to operate illegally within the city. The only two comments that I have about it are concerning kind of a policy issue behind us. I spoke to some of the council offices earlier about the use of the Long Beach Police Department during these administrative citations. Christopher Ingraham from The Washington Post recently wrote an article detailing some pretty good information that's been gleaned from police, from national police statistics showing that these so-called kinetic or militaristic raids using the law, using the police departments in general raises the specter for violent incidents to occur during where essentially now completely civil and administrative procedures. That's both a waste here locally. The use of police during these administrative inspections essentially is a waste of resources and largely unnecessary, unless there's a specified and articulated reason to believe that the operator, the illegal operators there would be armed and dangerous. I say that being entirely conscientious, that the Code Enforcement Department suffered a murder believe within the last decade of an inspector by mistaken about that. I'm sorry, but I believe I remember that happening. So obviously there is a concern for inspectors out in the field and we and that is to be respected and that has to be upheld. But again, without a specified reason for believing that this could be the case, most of these illegal operators I mean, I'm sure all of the people here would be shocked to believe this actually don't know that they're operating legally. Many of them have just decided it will decide to just start putting plants on the ground without ever consulting an attorney or reading the municipal code. Hopefully, this particular instance provides them the notice that's necessary so we don't have that happening again. But it is. Two other quick comments, too. SB 94 has been recently just was signed, I think today by the governor. So unfortunately, Charlie, the wonderful regulatory packages of the AMA and the NCR say that your office has been working with for the last couple of months, there have now been more or less erased and they're being combined into one particular bill, which means that we might have an entirely new comment period to three starting soon with all new regulations from the state level. In terms of in addition to this, the only this particular ordinance, I would recommend highly that the code that the code enforcement or whoever has the jurisdiction over this particular issue develops a disposal policy for any seized cannabis they that they might obtain. Not all of it will be useful for it will be useful, are being put are being able to be cultivated immediately. But for those that I know, the Santa Ana Police Department is suffering from an overwhelming just barrage of seized materials. And so developing a policy to provide those medicine to the people who need it would be a good idea. Thank you. You got it in 3 minutes. Seeing no further public comment. Members, please cast your vote on this item. One motion. Carries. Thank you, Madam Clerk. What is the next item we have? I know we're a little out of order here. Study session one. I don't know if you're ready for that. Yeah. Thank you.