Medical marijuana dispensary Green Angel Collective filed an appeal of the Planning Commission’s decision to deny it a conditional use permit to legally continue operating within city limits.
The commission voted 3-1 at its June 2 meeting to deny Green Angel the permit. The decision will now be made by city council at an undetermined date.
Green Angel’s attorney, Steven Schectman, said Tuesday if the city council rejects the appeal, then the dispensary could go to court to review the legality of the council’s decision. Should the council reject the appeal, Green Angel can only obtain rights for legal operation by a city council-approved zone text amendment. Mayor Andy Stern on Tuesday denied comment regarding the issue because, he said, he had not yet thoroughly reviewed the appeal.
Green Angel, one of two dispensaries operating within city limits, submitted the original application in October and requested a conditional use permit to allow its continued operation in an existing commercial building located on Pacific Coast Highway near the old Malibu Courthouse. It also requested a variance to allow it to operate within a 1,000-foot radius of Las Flores Canyon Park.
Though current city law allows a maximum of three medical marijuana dispensaries, the council passed a distance ordinance earlier this year that prohibits any dispensaries from setting up shop within a 1,000-foot radius of parks, places of religious affiliation and schools, among other locations. When the city originally approved the operation of Green Angel approximately a year and a half ago, the distance ordinance did not exist.
Ambiguities in the distance ordinance have caused much contention in this particular case. If calculated using Pacific Coast Highway, Green Angel’s distance from Las Flores Canyon Park exceeds 1,000 feet. However, if calculated over the mountain ridge and houses that lie between, the dispensary’s distance from the park is less than 1,000 feet.
“Las Flores Canyon Park was not even established by the summer of 2008 which, according to my recollection, is very different than what some of the Planning Commissioners represented at the hearing on June 2,” Schectman wrote in an email to The Malibu Times.
“The park was created after the medical marijuana ordinance was enacted,” he continued. “Thus, had the Planning Commission relied not on their recollection but on actual, legal documents, a different result may have occurred.
“We are hoping we will be treated fairly, we hope that the city will follow the exact law and the intent and the spirit of the law,” Schectman said.