By Katie Burke
The city of Chula Vista has unanimously voted to ban all marijuana dispensaries medical and recreational. The council doesn’t feel like they have had enough time to come up with regulations, which is odd seeing medical marijuana has been approved in the state of California since 1996. This leaves most citizens to question how much more time they need? One resident stood up and addressed the city council comparing them to Ostriches, sticking their heads in the sand to ignore what’s going on.
The city for now, will not have any approved dispensaries until they come up with a long term policy on the collectives. One of the members did stress at the close of the meeting that they do just see this as being temporary and they will address the issue at a future date.
The other cannabis related item on the agenda had addressed adding marijuana and other controlled substances to their social host ordinance. The social host ordinance is by definition, a legal term of the law that deals with the liability of a person who supplies liquor to a guest under the legal age. Under current social host ordinance laws, the host shares any liability incurred as a result of actions by an intoxicated guest to whom he or she has served liquor.
The city says they will be cracking down on the social host ordinance holding adults responsible for providing access to minors. Chula Vista Police Captain Lon Turner was quoted by CBS 8 as saying these parties have date rapes happening and all kinds of other disorderly behavior. If the city adds marijuana to the proposed social host ordinance it would read like this
“It is the duty of any person having control of any premises, who knowingly hosts, permits, or allows a gathering at said premises to take all reasonable steps to prevent the consumption of alcoholic beverages, marijuana, or other controlled substances by any minor at the gathering.”
