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REQUEST FOR <br />COUNCIL ACTION <br />CITY COUNCIL MEETING DATE: <br />JUNE 3, 2014 <br />TITLE: <br />BALLOT INITIATIVE REGARDING <br />MEDICAL MARIJUANA COLLECTIVES/ <br />COOPERATIVES <br />CITY MANAdItR <br />RECOMMENDED ACTION <br />CLERK OF COUNCIL USE ONLY: <br />APPROVED <br />❑ As Recommended <br />❑ As Amended <br />❑ Ordinance on 1" Reading <br />❑ Ordinance on 2nd Reading <br />❑ Implementing Resolution <br />❑ Set Public Hearing For <br />CONTINUED TO <br />FILE NUMBER <br />Discuss options for an initiative on the November 2014 ballot regarding medical marijuana <br />collectives /cooperatives, including a potential action to provide direction to staff. <br />On February 19, 2013 the City Council received the Certificate of Sufficiency indicating the <br />proponents of the Santa Ana Medical Cannabis Restriction and Limitation Initiative obtained the <br />necessary valid signatures to have the initiative placed on the ballot at the next general election <br />in November, 2014. In March, 2013 staff presented a report to the City Council analyzing the <br />proposed initiative to assist the Council in making a decision to either adopt the initiative as <br />submitted or to submit it to the voters at the November 2014 general election. <br />At the March 18, 2013 meeting the City Council moved to receive and file the report, call for the <br />election, and place the measure on the November 2014 ballot. The City Council also directed <br />staff to explore placing a competing initiative on the November 2014 ballot to either affirm the <br />City's ban on storefront medical marijuana collectives /cooperatives or an initiative to further <br />regulate collectives /cooperatives beyond the proposed regulations provided in the collective - <br />backed initiative. <br />BACKGROUND <br />State and Federal Law <br />In 1996, California voters approved Proposition 215, entitled "The Compassionate Use Act" <br />(CUA), which provides seriously ill Californians the right to obtain and use marijuana for medical <br />purposes" once a physician has deemed the use beneficial to the patient's health. The CUA <br />regulates several forms through which marijuana can be distributed, such as "a medical <br />marijuana cooperative, collective, collective, operator, establishment, or provider that is <br />authorized by law to possess, cultivate, or distribute medical marijuana and that has a storefront <br />or mobile retail outlet which ordinarily requires a local business license." By its own terms, <br />nothing in CUA prohibited cites from adopting policies further restricting the location or <br />establishment of such operations. <br />6513-1 <br />