Recommendation to receive and file a report on the Medicinal and Adult-Use Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act (MAUCRSA) related to commercial adult-use marijuana regulations; and Approve one of the following actions: 1) Request City Attorney to draft an ordinance to ban the retail sale, cultivation, manufacture, distribution, and laboratory testing of adult-use marijuana in Long Beach; OR 2) Request City Manager to work with affected City departments to develop recommendations to legalize and regulate Commercial Adult-Use Marijuana Businesses in Long Beach; request City Attorney to prepare a draft ordinance to allow, license, and regulate the retail sale, cultivation, manufacture, distribution, and laboratory testing of adult-use marijuana in Long Beach, based on findings and recommendations of the study conducted by the City Manager; and, in the interim, request City Attorney to prepare a draft ordinance to implement a temporary hold on adult-use marijuana businesses in Long Beach until a commercial adult-use marijuana ordinance can b
Okay. There's a motion and a second question. Votes. Motion carries in 26, please. Item 26 is a report from the city manager and the city attorney. Recommendations receive and file report on a Mendocino and Adult Use Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act related to commercial adult use marijuana regulations and approved. One of the following actions requires the city attorney to drive an ordinance to ban the retail sale, cultivation, manufacture, distribution and laboratory testing of adult use marijuana in Long Beach. Or request the city manager to work with the affected city departments to develop recommendations to legalize and regulate commercial adult use marijuana businesses. In Long Beach City. There is a staff report, so we're going to do a staff report first and then we'll go into the motions. Mr. Mayor, council members. We have our deputy city manager, Kevin Jackson, prepared and also our assistant to the city manager, AJ Corey, to this. Decision. Kevin. Thank you, Pat. AJ Cleary. Our assistant city manager, will be conducting the presentation tonight on recreational marijuana. Thanks, Kevin. Thanks, Kevin. Mayors and member members of the City Council. I'm here to provide an update on the state's Commercial Adult Use Marijuana Program and more importantly, to seek direction from the City Council on the preferred approach to regulating the adult use market in Long Beach. Before I dove. Into the details of adult use, I want to provide a quick update to City Council on the Long Beach Commercial Medical Marijuana Program. Currently, there are over 100 businesses in the process of obtaining a medical marijuana business license from the city. This includes 32 retailers, which we call dispensaries, 43 grow operators, which we call cultivators, 23 manufacturers, eight distributors and two testing laboratories. The vast majority of these businesses are still working their way through the application process and are not expected to begin operating until next year. So far, only two medical marijuana businesses, both of them dispensaries, have actually received a business license and begun operating. Now to the state level. The state of California recently approved the Medicinal and Adult Use Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act or mask for short. Under the authority of this law, the state will begin issuing marijuana business licenses on January 1st, 2018 to both medical and adult use marijuana businesses. However, the state will only issue business licenses in cities that permit commercial marijuana activity. Long Beach is one of those cities. Long Beach voters through ballot measures may and may approved commercial medical marijuana activity measures, MDMA, to find where and how medical marijuana businesses may operate locally. However, these measures did not address adult use or recreational marijuana. To date, neither the Long Beach voters nor the city council have taken a formal position on whether to allow commercial adult use marijuana businesses to operate in the city. Currently, the city maintains an implicit ban on commercial adult use marijuana activity through its permissive zoning code. However, the California League of Cities has cautioned member cities against relying exclusively on permissive zoning laws to maintain a ban on adult use. Businesses reliance on these laws may invite costly and uncertain litigation from marijuana advocates or businesses challenging the city's interpretation of its zoning code. In other words, there is a risk that beginning January 1st, 2018, some marijuana businesses may attempt to bypass the city and apply for an adult use license directly with the state. If those businesses are successful, the city will have lost its local control over the adult use industry and the state will become the sole licensing authority for adult use marijuana businesses in Long Beach. For this reason, staff is recommending that city council approve one of the following two options. The first option is to request the city attorney to draft an ordinance to ban the retail sale, cultivation, manufacture, distribution and laboratory testing of adult use marijuana in Long Beach. An outright ban would strengthen and clarify the implicit ban currently in place through the city's permissive zoning code. The second option is to legalize and regulate commercial adult use marijuana businesses in Long Beach because option number one is relatively straightforward and an ordinance to ban commercial adult use marijuana could be prepared fairly easily. The remainder of this presentation will discuss staff's recommended process should city council choose option number two. If City Council chooses option number two, staff recommends the following actions. First, the city manager's office will work with affected city departments to research best practices and develop recommendations to appropriately regulate commercial adult use marijuana businesses in Long Beach. It's not enough to simply recycle the medical marijuana initiative that voters approved previously and repurpose it for adult use. The marijuana industry is changing rapidly and our adult use ordinance would need to change with it. Further, over the past year, department staff have developed expertize in marijuana policy and how it relates to public health, public safety, land use, business oversight and enforcement. Staff respectfully request the opportunity to incorporate this expertize into any adult use ordinance development process. Second, the city attorney's office will prepare a draft ordinance to allow license and regulate adult use marijuana businesses in Long Beach using the recommendations prepared by department staff. The ordinance will take some time to prepare. It will need to accommodate changes in state law under the MAAZA, as well as hundreds of pages of draft regulations. These regulations are yet to be released by the state and are expected later this year. Finally, in the interim, the city attorney will prepare a draft urgency ordinance to establish a temporary hold on adult use marijuana businesses in Long Beach. The temporary hold is necessary to avoid legal challenges for marijuana businesses seeking to bypass local approval and apply directly with the state for commercial adult use business licenses on January 1st, 2018. If option number two is selected, the city must resolve a number, a number of outstanding policy issues. Some of these key issues are listed on the next two slides. One of the main reasons for this presentation tonight is for staff to solicit feedback from the city council and the public on these issues. However, this list is by no means comprehensive, so staff is also requesting direction from the City Council on any other adult use marijuana policy that might be incorporated into an adult use ordinance. The first key question is how many adult use dispensaries should be permitted to operate in Long Beach. For comparison, Measure MM required the city to issue 32 medical dispensary licenses. Staff recommends maintaining this level for adult use. The second key question relates to co-location of medical and adult use dispensaries on the same site. Staff recommends requiring any adult use dispensary to co-locate within the 32 medical marijuana dispensaries that have already been identified. This will allow the city to maintain its current cap of 32 total dispensary locations citywide. Without co-location, each adult use dispensary location would be in addition to the 32 medical dispensary locations that have already been selected. The third key question relates to zoning. Currently, medical marijuana businesses may locate in any area of the city not zoned exclusively residential. The Department of Development Services will take the lead in determining if this same standard should apply to adult use marijuana businesses. Fourth staff anticipates that a significant number of non dispensary medical marijuana businesses will seek to convert to adult use licenses. For instance, a medical marijuana cultivator may wish to convert to an adult use marijuana cultivator in order to supply the adult use market. To accommodate these types of conversions. The Department of Financial Management will consider an expedited adult use application process for businesses that have already received a medical marijuana license. And finally, the city will have to decide whether to require a ministerial or discretionary review of adult use applications. Currently, medical marijuana businesses follow a ministerial process whereby businesses are able to obtain a license from the city without receiving input from the city council or residents. Staff recommends reexamining this process for adult use businesses to determine if a more discretionary process could be utilized. That allows for public input on licensing decisions. Regardless of which option is chosen. City attorney will return to city council in December with a draft ordinance. If option number one is selected, the city attorney will present an ordinance to explicitly ban commercial adult use marijuana in Long Beach. If option number two is selected, the city attorney will present an ordinance to place a 180 day temporary hold on commercial adult use marijuana activities in Long Beach during the temporary hold. Staff will develop recommendations on what to include in a commercial adult use ordinance. Those recommendations will be shared with the city attorney, who will then use that information to draft an ordinance to legalize and regulate commercial adult use. The goal is to present city council with a draft ordinance by June 2018. Upon release of the draft ordinance. Staff will present a fiscal impact report to the City Council on Commercial Adult Use. City Council will then be requested to provide further input on the Adult Use Ordinance and submit revisions wherever needed. So to recap, the purpose of this discussion is to seek general direction from the City Council on how to proceed with commercial adult use marijuana in Long Beach. This will allow staff time and direction to begin the process of developing a program around City Council's stated position on the issue. That concludes my presentation and I'm available to answer any questions. Thank you very much. We're going to go into the council. Councilman Price. Thank you. I have a few questions for staff and then I'm going to make a motion. And of course. Actually let me ask staff some questions and then if it's okay with the mayor, can we go to public comment and then we can come back to the council? But I just have a few clarifying questions and AJ, thank you for the presentation. AJ and I were both fortunate to have the opportunity to do a webinar on this topic back in August that the California League League of California Cities put together. And so I understand why we're bringing this item forward now, and that is because not doing so would could subject the city to litigation if we were sued based on a denial of a permit. Is that correct? Yeah, that's correct. Okay. So in regards to that timing, then, you know, I recall that during this training that you and I received, there was the option to do a temporary ban. Can you talk a little bit about that option? The temporary ban is essentially what is being proposed if option number two is selected. So we're calling it here a temporary hold, but it could go by a temporary ban as well. And then the hard sunset date would be the 180 days. That's correct. But city council would have the ability to extend that temporary hold as long as necessary. Okay. I think this. Is we just received this presentation today, and I know that staff, a lot of times they're working on their presentation up until the time of council. But I will say in looking at this presentation, there's a great deal of information on what would happen if we picked option two. But there's very little information as to option one, why a city would go with option one, what the pros and the cons of option one would be. So with that regard in that regards, can you educate us on what other cities in the region have done in regards to this particular issue? And if they have taken a stance on this, how many of them have made a decision to ban as opposed to allow adult use marijuana? Sure. We did a preliminary review of cities in Southern California to see which had implemented a ban which are currently in the same position as Long Beach and are only allowing medical and which cities are currently allowing adult use commercially. What we found based off of our review was that, you know, we looked at approximately 20 or so cities. The majority of them had a ban in place. That ban was implemented in many instances even before Proposition 64 had passed. Those cities clearly did not want either medical or adult use in place, and so they passed it over a year ago. Some of the other cities that had implemented the ban did so within the last few months. But a lot of them a while ago there were a handful of cities that are like Long Beach that are currently allowing medical only. They include Santa Ana, Santa monica, which has a proposed ordinance for Medical Compton, which has a proposed ballot initiative for Medical. Costa mesa, Desert Hot Springs and Palm Springs. There were only three cities that we can identify that have adult use ordinances in place, and that included Los Angeles City, City of San Diego and city of Carson. Okay. For the cities that have recently engaged in these discussions and opted to continue a ban, do you have any understanding of what some of the reasons they cited for continuing the ban might be? I don't. I mean, it's, as you're well aware, a very complicated topic that impacts many different policy areas public safety, public health, the the resources of the city to enforce both the license and unlicensed businesses. So each city is probably looking at different elements of legalization and making a termination that it's not worth some of the consequences for the cities that choose to legalize. They may be emphasizing medical access, potential revenue sources, things that affect. So there's pros and cons to both sides. And I don't know exactly what into each city's consideration. Well, and that probably wasn't that question probably wasn't phrased in the best way in light of the current situation with the state's bureau on Cannabis Control. Are there any concerns that have been raised in regards to the uncertainty of the regulations, the fact that this is a very dynamic area where there's policy changes literally being proposed every single day in regards to certification, testing, all manner of regulatory processes. That that is a very dynamic area right now. And a lot of cities are hesitant to enter that area right now since the laws really have not been set into place and the regulation regulatory scheme has not been established. Have you heard that? That's absolutely true. The laws are changing at the state level. On a monthly basis, it seems. The regulations, which are expected to be hundreds of pages in length, are yet to even be released. So it would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible, to propose an adult use ordinance prior to this date. It will still be very difficult to propose an adult use commercial ordinance within the next few months. But staff is confident that if we are provided 180 days by next year, we believe the state will have its laws finalized, its draft regulations released and hopefully adopted as well. And so we'll have the information that we need at the state level to be able to develop a comprehensive recreational ordinance. Well, and I certainly do appreciate optimism by our city staff when expressed in regards to any projects. But I will say, and I'm sure you can agree, that the roll out of just the medical portion of this has not been the smoothest even for the city. We've had a lot of clarification that we've had to do. It's it's a new venture for us. And so we've had to go through. And although it's been I mean, I'm one of the districts that is having a medical marijuana dispensary operating currently. And I know that the business owner is here. And that partnership has been nothing short of fantastic. And I'm very grateful for the partnership that we have with that owner, and I wish them nothing but success. And so in that regards, it's it's been it's been a great relationship for us. But what I will say is that I think we can all agree that setting policies and establishing regulations can sometimes be a bit of a messy process, and two of the 32 are open. We still have 30 facilities to go. Right, 30 dispensaries to go. That's right. So, you know, my my thoughts on this are, you know, I still have the same reservations about the resources that will be consumed through the operation of illegal dispensaries in the city. And what that will mean for the quality of life issues that our residents experience, since they will not have the type of police resources that they deserve, since those resources will have to be routed elsewhere to enforce illegal operations. Those concerns that I have still remain, and I know that many of the business owners, in fact, we met with with the business owners that are going to be establishing a property in might establishing a dispensary in my district at Fourth and Redondo last night. Again, lovely people really enjoyed meeting with them. They're coming to our district by way of voter initiative, and I approve that. And I'm going to partner with them every which way that I can. But that doesn't negate the concerns that I have regarding the drain on our resources. And we have yet to see what the practical application of our regulations and what the resources will be once these facilities are operating and we have a market that might be illegal in nature established in Long Beach. So I bring this I understand why staff is bringing this item. I think that we've only started to implement the medical marijuana voter approved initiative here in the city of Long Beach. The process itself has had some uncertainties, with many requests for clarification along the way. The state policies are changing very rapidly and dynamically, and it would be my recommendation to my colleagues that we can explicitly continue the ban and revisit this issue. After all, 32 of our medical marijuana facilities are opening and opened and operating before we expand the services that they're providing to allow for adult use. I think that would be a better time for us to reevaluate the situation. We'll have some data from which we can assess what the implications or consequences are, if any. Perhaps there will be no consequences, and then we can roll out the cocoa use option. So that's my recommendation, is to go my my motion is to go with option one and continue the ban until all 32 of our medical marijuana facilities are in existence. And then we can evaluate adult use. Thank you. Okay. You want to speak to the motion? Councilwoman, go. If I could get from. Our staff. What? I don't want to be your first name. Age. Watch what timeline you think we will have before all 32 are open. It's hard for us to say. The reason is because that's mostly out of our control. A lot of it has to do with the quality of the architectural drawings that these businesses submit, how responsive they are to department requests for for changes to those plans when they begin construction. How long that process takes them. If they clear inspections, if they don't clear inspections. So I suspect that the bulk of the businesses will be open perhaps first quarter, second quarter of next year. But there could be a few businesses that maybe for structural reasons, their facility is not working out. They have issues for other reasons that prevent them from opening for perhaps a year or even longer than that. So I will only add that I. Commend your work on this effort, and I commend the continued work by some of my colleagues to ensure that we are being prudent in our rollout and in addition to policing the band. I would like staff to work towards what a recommendation would look like when and if it comes back, because I recognize that it will take a long time to develop. I think that there need to be incentives for those that are good operators to have the first option of adult use. Should this council decide after the second quarter of next year to repeal the ban and implement some policies. I think that at a time when the staff are confident in the policies that would outline the operation, I think that would be a great time to bring it back. I think that sunsetting the policy at an arbitrary time where we may or may not know what the state is doing is different. But I think that those policy directions should be in progress immediately with a goal of you bringing that back to council. Close the second quarter next year. With a two from four at the minimum. And I would also add that should these policies not only need the direction of the community I'm sorry, the city staff, but the community is who voted for this. And the community should have some input into the adult use side. There are a lot of individuals who are strongly in favor of the option of marijuana but have some concerns about. Which direction the building will face. There are some locations that are going to be built out differently than others, some that will have drive thru, some will have different things that are at least being talked about in the community. That may just be rumors. But I think that looking at and incentivizing those that have strong cash handling policies, those that whatever it is that we feel as the first quarter has opened and closed, whatever businesses are the models is what we should probably establish the requirements after. And so with that, if you're open to that. Councilwoman. Sure. Great. Thank you. Okay. There was a request to first go to public comment. I have other council members I want to speak, but I'm going to go to public comment and then we'll go to the council as folks are queued up. So please, there's a lot of council discussion they want, so please try to keep it precise. I think most folks are I've heard a lot of testimony on this topic, so let's keep it brief and let's let the council get into it into the discussion. Okay. But actually, Mr. Parkin, that you have something. I just saw you queue up. Thank you, Mayor. Just to clarify, the. Motion is, as I understand, it would be option one to for the office to prepare a ban and bring that back to city council to implement until and then at such time that 32 dispensaries are operational, there would be a report back from staff on the dispensaries. Councilmember Mungo I'm not sure I understood what your requested friendly was. So my requested friendly would be that it sounds like after the second quarter of next year most would be open. So instead of giving a a firm date of all 32 must be open. I would advise it to say that staff continually work from here forward on a two from four outlining some of the guidelines and to have it back to us by so. I and if I understand the revised motion then would be due for our office to. Draft a ban retail sales of recreational marijuana. And at the end of the second quarter of 2018, there would be a staff report, at a minimum a two from four memo to the mayor and Council identifying. Issues associated with adult use. Recreational and recreational marijuana. And opportunities. Should they think the policy is appropriate at that time? What are the best practices? So we would be in a position no matter what direction we felt at that time. We wouldn't have to wait another six months to write something. We would be in that process of what would it look like if we went that direction and keeping abreast of those best policy practices. I think the clarification. That I need is that we would not at this report would come back and at some point the council would have to decide to repeal the ban and direct us to prepare an ordinance so there would not be an ordinance prepared at the end of the six months, it would be a report back. And then council can make that decision and or give that direction. Yes. And at that time, they could theoretically do both at one council meeting. Thank you. Thank you. Let's try to keep our comments brief. Again, we have other council members queued up quite. Brief, fully supporting the approach of Councilwoman Pryce. But I'd also take this approach everything. If we're forced to travel down this path, every single license every year would cost $10 million and that every transaction would have a $1 million transaction tax on that transaction, no matter whether it was recreational or medicinal. Also if you could point out the that one of the reasons for that. Is this city in too many instances is extremely poorly managed. And that we have a mayor in Kew that is going to be arrested for corruption. And until such time as that gets squared away and the management gets squared away. We need those dollars. To protect the voters. Thank you. Next speaker. Okay. Hi. My name is Christina Cahill. I live in the second district. These are just my personal feelings about the whole marijuana issue near my home. I guess one of the first medical marijuana dispensaries is opening. I wasn't that aware of it. And then then I was aware of this that you are going to decide. Whether to ban the. Recreational. So here I am. I didn't have much time to prepare. But what I don't hear from the conversation is, you know, there's a lot of. Beat marijuana, there's a lot of. Harm. It's both psychological and physical. And I don't know if it's talked about or even known. I've known about it for a long time. Just even preparing for this. I looked online. There's a lot of harm. Some of the. Effects. I want us to be wise in this. And if it was my choice, I would minimize it completely. That's because a lot of people are vulnerable to getting mixed up with it too deep and affecting their lives in a negative way. Just one little experience I had. It's just one. It doesn't. Define the whole. Industry, but. Me and my friend went to get some medical marijuana. I forgot it was in Orange County and we just I expected it. A brightly lit kind of positive place. Clean, all that. Stuff. And it wasn't it was really, you know, they had they said there were medical marijuana. They had huge graffiti inside a pot, smoking animals and stuff. Plexiglass makes you seem like someone's going to shoot any moment and. It really weird. I want to get out of there. It was very dark. And I mean, let's be honest, it's not all medical marijuana, marijuana. But some of the negative effects are I don't know if people know. Heart attack goes up 26% after you have some pot for teenagers that the brain is still developing, it. Affects their brain. A negative way could change kind of the course of their life. There's also smoke in the lungs, you know? You know, cigaret smoking is very unpopular. Well, that comes from a plant and that's very damaging. There's no reason to think that marijuana also wouldn't be damaging. The only reason it hasn't been studied is much because it was a class one drug for so long. They do know some. Things, but you. Know, it's still smoke in the lungs in 10%. Of the people become dependent. What does that do. To young people? I have my own experience, not with me, but some friends. When they become dependent, it becomes a major focus in their life as opposed to other things, their growth, their development as a person. I don't know if that is healthy. I don't know if that's. A good thing for a community. Also, my research today, I found out there is more crime around these dispensaries and in the Long Beach one. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Everyone. I'm Eldorado Park. This is my first time talking in front of you guys, and I'm kind of nervous, so I had to write some stuff down. Among Eldorado Park Estates, resident and voter from District five, and I'm very concerned about a pot business, medical, recreational opening up in my neighborhood that has been proposed. I would like the city council to know if they don't know already that Los Alamitos High School is a block away from this proposed site. And Newcomb Academy, which is a ky3, is approximately three blocks away. And I want to ask the city council a few questions. Are are these are these dispensaries this close to schools appropriate? Question number two, do minimum standards for locations have to pass the common sense test? And three, what do you say to residents and voters that live here in districts that are going to be impacted by businesses given licenses. To sell marijuana in their neighborhood? One more thing is I work in L.A. and I pass by these sites all the time and namesake Kush factory and all the crap that around these locations is something that is visible and something that unless you are around these things all the time. You might not. Be aware. Of. So good luck, I guess. Thank you. Next week. Good evening. My name is Susan Soaries and I'm the executive director of the 501c3 nonprofit organization CARE, where my mission is to advocacy and education of the cannabis plant. I was 33 years old and I was an Orange County Republican soccer mom leader in the Mormon Church when I sustained an injury to my head. And I can tell you that cannabis saved my life. I want you council members and mayor to think about something when it comes to recreational cannabis. At my event on the Queen Mary last year, I had California State Comptroller Betty Yee come and speak to us. And one of the things that she mentioned was that we need to look at tourism and what California cannabis tourism can mean to us. This is money that doesn't come out of your constituents pockets, and it's a big, big number. She said that we, if regulated properly, which is a big if, if regulated properly, we could see a 20% increase in tourism. That's really important to Long Beach. That's a big number. We're talking about statewide, possibly up to 27, 28 billion extra dollars. That's coming from the outside in. We're talking about 300,000 jobs that are not easily replaced by robots. So I think it's time for Long Beach to be a leader. Let's not look at what the other cities are doing. What's Long Beach doing? Long Beach is awesome. We've got the cruise ships coming in. We've got the best port airport in America. We've got some of the best restaurants and hotels. Let's leave California. Thank you. Thank you. Next week. Hi. I read an article in Long Beach Business Journal about. The warehouses in. Lower West Side being converted to marijuana large scale production. And to be honest with you, I lived in Long Beach my whole life. And one ka'anapali I had one kid at Cabrillo. We it is everywhere in Long Beach. It is so. A part of our culture. And as far as I'm concerned, these owners have just been screwed over and over again with all the permits that they've been trying to get and being. It's just it's taken forever. And they're buying little lotteries in years, turning up and then having to close it. Come on, the kids are selling it. It's this isn't a joke. Okay. So what we have to look at is the pools that are coming through here in mass quantity. Now, I can tell you, if a kid set on dope in the park and I can at a time be like, you know, you really don't want to go home, come in like this. You know, there's security officers all over the side here. They can tell you your eyes are, you know, okay, I can tell the difference between the pools. They're coming through cabrio for $5 a pop. You can get them in the con. It's a X, but I don't think it's Xanax. And then the other issue is they're coming in with clear water bottles for liquor all day long. Now, if you want to look at I'm I'm is communing I feel is yeah to be honest about weed thank you. Thank you Speaker. My name is Kathleen Brady, and I'd like to ask that the council prohibit the sale of commercial marijuana in Long Beach and other associated businesses. I'm concerned that allowing such businesses will be a strain on the city's services, such as the Long Beach PD and the other agencies needed to regulate and enforce these businesses and the cost of ameliorating the public health impact. I'm skeptical that taxes placed on these establishments will cover the true costs. And my second concern is that allowing recreational marijuana sends an implicit message to our. Kids in. Long Beach that using marijuana is okay. For them. I realize the legal age is 21 and it will be strictly checked. But in the past few years, I've been troubled by what I see here in town. Twice I've seen middle school kids smoking weed and many times more often high school aged kids. At times I see young women about 15 years old with groups of older guys smoking together. These are scenarios I've personally witnessed here in my neighborhood, and as I move about this city, these are obvious problems that I think will be magnified by allowing recreational pot business in Long Beach. I believe that the existing framework for medicinal medicinal marijuana is sufficient. To meet the needs of Long Beach residents. Thank you. I'm going down to 2 minutes, guys. We're going to make these quick with that. The counselor wants to get engaged, so please, we set a long agenda. And in 2013 while working. Oh, sorry. My name is Stephanie Dawson. So I'm a resident of the second district. In 2013, we're working for then Councilmember Robert Garcia. I asked Councilmember Abo Austin why the city can't seem to fix the persistent issues regarding the nascent medical marijuana industry at that time. To this day, I have yet to hear more accurate analysis regarding the burden facing local government in regulating this agricultural commodity. That evening, Al pointed out to the that thanks to federalism, local government is designed mainly to address land use and tax issues. Laws concerning consumer safety, labor relations and product liability are usually designed with the state or federal authorities. As a result. SB 420 In the old medical marijuana laws function as an unfunded mandate wherein local resources were being diverted to enforce poorly conceived laws with potentially large collateral consequences to public safety. However, thanks to the efforts of Assembly member Reggie John Sawyer and his wonderful staff, which includes Councilmember Austin's wife, we have exactly what we were missing in 2013 statewide laws and regulations. We have agencies in charge of licensing discrete and highly regulated business activities. We are forcing commercial cannabis providers to abide by the strictest labor and environmental standards in the country. We're requiring seed to sale tracking throughout the entire supply chain, mitigating the risk of diversion, and thereby thereby keeping the feds out of our city. The voters of the city overwhelmingly voted in favor of three things last year legalizing adult use cannabis via Proposition 64, requiring the city to permit medical marijuana businesses and to tax both medical and adult use locally. Strong. Clearly, there was strong democratic will for these businesses to exist. I don't see a reason, by the way, to expand beyond the number that we have for 32. And I think that this focus on the development of the retail sector is a place mark for determining when we will allow adult use as misguided. We have an existing tax at 6% all the way up to 12% of gross for manufacturing. L.A. City and L.A. County are not going to get their stuff together until next year. Perhaps. In the meantime, we can corner the entire state for manufacturing cannabis on both sides. And if you want that money in those jobs, that's. Going to be the best way to make sure we have. How many of these businesses right now are applying for these licenses? We will double that by then. Thank you very much. Next speaker and this is it looks the speaker this is closed. Thank the speaker. Honorable Mayor council members. My name is Matt Bellamy, Executive Vice President of U of CW Local 324 UFC W represents cannabis workers throughout the United States, California and actually here in Long Beach, LBC and UFC W 324 submitted a letter to the Council, the mayor, city manager and city attorney that we support proposal number two to move forward with having staff write an ordinance for adult use and Long Beach. Prop 64 was passed statewide last year, both locally and statewide, showing that the voters of the state and the city want adult access to cannabis. And Long Beach has gone through over nine months of hard work opening the current medical cannabis businesses. And I would just like to say that these businesses have been heavily vetted by the city and should be able to co-locate with the adult use. And the staff should take that in mind as they draft that ordinance. And that's the direction I think that what's been happening here in Long Beach has been the model for what's being used throughout the country. In fact, the city of Santa Ana just last week used the same model to pass adult use in their city. So the two current Carnival medical cannabis businesses that have opened are also creating good, sustainable jobs with fair wages, health care and a pension for the employees and their family. So we would ask that the city continue this work and move forward with directing staff to draft an adult, use cannabis ordinance and institute that temporary hold, which I think should satisfy the entire council until they can move forward and draft an ordinance that would allow for adult use. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker. Nathan, those are district two. Just quickly to Councilwoman Price's earlier motion. As someone that also works in the public sector, I know that. Using the cautious wait and see option. Can be more toxic. Then pulling the trigger. So the fiscal and public safety analyzes have been conducted. Millions of votes have been cast statewide. And I think it's tough to dispute that there's definitely an appetite among citizens to settle this issue once and for all and embrace policies such as the one under consideration this evening. With that said, as someone who does not regularly enjoy marijuana, I have to say that I believe this is about something much bigger than simply allowing citizens the freedom to buy marijuana. This is about a band advancing the values we hold as a city. I moved to Long Beach about five years ago from Riverside, and the differences between the two cities are like night and day. Long Beach is home to an extremely vibrant, diverse and tolerant society, and all of us are very proud of it as well. We should be now at a time when our country as a whole is going through a major identity crisis, we depend on and expect you all our local elected officials to step up to the plate and aggressively advocate for progressive policies that encourage even more openness, more tolerance and more liberty in our city. After all, it's this very open openness, tolerance and liberty that distinguishes Long Beach from other places like Riverside. It would be a beautiful thing. If we as a society can move past this notion of because I choose not to do something, I don't want other people to do it either. This type of thinking. Stifles growth of a free and vibrant city. With that said, I also agree with Stat's recommendation that any recreational marijuana dispensaries should co-locate with medical businesses. On that note, I strongly encourage you to direct the city manager to develop a policy that would allow for the sale of adult use marijuana. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Honorable Mayor and City Council. My name is Gregory, left and board of directors for the Long Beach Collective Association. I think pretty much all the council here knows where we stand on the issue. I'm not going to take the full 2 minutes. Rather, I'd like to use this opportunity to thank the city staff, especially the city manager's office, but along with the city attorney's office and all the other affected departments that have been helping this process. Emily, I mean, you know, they've been working so hard for the last nine months and I'm actually can't believe how smooth the process has been. So hats off to you guys. Thank you so much for all the cooperation. And, you know, we're always here to help if there's some from the industry side. So again, thank you and thank you. Speaker Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Council Members. My name is Charles Baldwin. I'm the chief compliance officer for Sugar, a vertically integrated California cannabis company with operations both here in California as well as in Nevada. I know that with the 11th hour here, we're all starting to fade a little bit and lose attention a bit. But I would like to just cast my vote for urging the council to pursue option number two. The voters have spoken in Long Beach. They strongly have voted in favor of adult use. California needs your help. Recreational sales are happening in California right now. Children have access to cannabis. The best way to address these public safety issues is to support a robust, regulated industry by choosing to wait and see like many other municipalities are doing. You are not assisting the state in bringing transparency and oversight and regulations into this industry. I would strongly encourage you to take this opportunity to build upon the work that city staff has done and assist the state in bringing regulated cannabis to the voters. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker two Hello, my name is Luke Hiller. I'm from the second district. Interesting. I agree with Mr. Price here and that a moment of prudence might not be inappropriate. We are two dispensaries open so far. We have 30 dispensaries to go. We don't know how they're going to integrate with our community. We don't know what the benefit is. We don't know if, as this young man suggested, that somehow they will reduce youth smoking of pot. So I think just option one might be the best way with the option of reviewing six months to see after they open whether they there is a benefit to our to our city. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker My name is Elliot Lewis. Connected. I have a shop down in Belmont. Belmont? Sure. Hoping to get up another couple. I didn't want to go into the all the philosophical arguments, but I wanted to touch on a couple points. You know, Santa Ana has a recreational bill moving forward. There's likely one coming down the pipe in L.A. Rumblings and Lynnwood Bellflower. A lot of these surrounding cities are going to go recreational. You know, we appreciate the opportunity here to operate Long Beach as medical marijuana dispensaries. If we miss this opportunity to put it be put on an even playing field with surrounding cities, we'll lose market share and a wander undermine the industry. And then the last issue I think and a lot of people have said it's a fundamental issue. You know, my opinion is it's the job of the council to represent the voters, you know, overwhelmingly in Long Beach. There seems to be a mandate for adult use marijuana. There is no question that, you know, almost two thirds of the voters support it. So I would urge the council to represent the citizens of their district. And I know there's a small minority in every district that's. Really, really loud, but the two. Thirds is probably the quiet majority and they support adult use. Thanks. Thank you. Okay. We're going back to the council. Councilwoman Gonzales. Yes. I'd like to thank everybody for their comments. And this has been a long time coming. And I know that this has been a very busy process, but I feel very confident in providing the option number to legalize and regulate, which I would like to provide a substitute motion for. Substitute substitute motion for and substitute I'm sorry, it's very late tonight. And so I know historically we've gone through this so many times, but I do believe that our voters did overwhelmingly vote for recreational marijuana and over 63% of them. And there are a lot of cities that are doing the same thing. And we do put ourselves kind of in a place where we can really make a statement and be ahead of the curve. And I think that this is an opportunity for us to do that. And there are a lot of good dispensary owners who are investing a lot of money, but they're also being community members, going to our community, talking to our residents, doing the work. That's very difficult for us to do because you all do the work every single day. So that is my motion. Thank you. Thank you. There's a motion and a second baseman, Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I wanted to just go to staff with a few questions. So first, what was the. I know that that was prompted. This is Proposition 64 in California, correct? That's correct. And what was the voter? When was that? Was that June or November of last year? It was November of last year. So November of 2016 was, which was not a saw case. November 2016. What was the vote percentage in the state of California? At the state of California? It received, I think, 57% of the vote. Do we have are local numbers? County, city. County of Los Angeles was 59% of the vote and city of Long Beach was, I believe, above 63% of the vote. So city of Long Beach voters were higher than L.A. County voters and higher than the state of California on this issue. That's correct. Okay. Well, I know that look, the city has gone back and forth on this issue for years. This is one that's really clear that the voter intent is there. You know, in Long Beach, it was higher than the other state. So I don't really want to debate that issue. But what I will say is you have we know that medicinal we had time and time again to pass an ordinance and we failed to do so. And the result was the industry went to the ballot and sort of tied the city's hands. I don't want to make that mistake again very easily. If we don't take decisive action and begin to own this issue and create public policy is right for our city. Now, we don't do that. We could very well be in a position where folks go to the ballot next year, in 2018, when there's a statewide gubernatorial race . If the numbers were not a statewide gubernatorial last time in California and it will be next time, the numbers will likely be the same, if not higher. So I think we need to we need to move move forward. But one thing that we missed and what I think and I'm going to offer a substitute substitute motion, the one thing that I think is is missing is that I want to move forward with option number two. But but we do have the opportunity to add to those criteria to evaluate, correct? Yes. Okay. So one piece I think we need to evaluate is sort of the jobs labor, labor peace aspect and the social equity aspect. And here's why. So one city of Oakland City of Oakland has one of the one of the most robust processes that makes sure that these permits and licenses that go to, you know, the cultivation and the labs and all that. But there's some sort of a lens that provides local opportunities and makes sure that there are some some, you know, some diversity there. And I think we should take a look at some of those things and how we can integrate that into the recreational ordinance here, as well as the medicinal ordinance passed by the bill passed by the voters had had labor peace, ensuring that there were, you know, quality jobs and and, you know, a living wage being paid. And we want to make sure that that's represented here. So that would be my substitute motion and that would be just go with option two. But to place in place a lens and, you know, evaluate that as a part of it. Because that's a substantive, substantive motion by Vice Mayor Richardson and Councilman Andrews. That's the final motion on the floor. Councilman Andrews? Yeah. Yes. Thank you, Mayor. You know, I think I was probably, as I've been on this issue probably long with anybody in the diocese, you know, been up and down, up and down. But now, I think, has come to the time that we as a citizen and voters of the city of Long Beach. I mean, I think the voters have made their choice. And when we do that, you know, that's what we go to the ballots for, to let the citizens make the decisions. And they've made a decision. And with the passage of the recent ballot, I think it's clear that voters have supported the issue of using, you know, adult use of marijuana. So therefore, I support the drafting ordinance and allowed, you know, regulation of recreational recreational cannabis. And we should only offer it to those already who have license that we do not have to start a new process. And that's what it seems like we're doing. We can't keep going back and forth on this because you guys, the longer we wait, the more I think we're going to allow, you know, additional known as we cover these aspects of legalization. I think you can see an enforcement plan, you know, for the black market, because if we don't, someone else will. And right now, we have a chance to really set ourselves above everyone else because of what the citizens have said. They have voted for this. And I think it's time for us to move on this, because it's been over a year since we made this magic pass and it's still only, you know, hurt from to the look. We only have two locations in the city of Long Beach, and I think that's very, very few. So we need to take some time and move on because the longer we wait, the more it's going to encourage illegal behavior in this. And I want this bill. So you guys, Long Beach, if we're going to do it, we better do it now because the longer we wait, we let other individuals come in and take over . And I think it's really the voters have already chosen. They've told us what we want us to do. Let's follow that and thank you. Thank you. Members, please cast your votes on Vice Mayor Richardson's substitute. Substitute motion. Councilmember Huston who motion carries. Motion carries. Let's go ahead and go to the next item, please. We're going to do a consent calendar minus item five, please.