cannabisnews.com: SF Pot Dispensary is Acquiring Mainstream Permit





SF Pot Dispensary is Acquiring Mainstream Permit
Posted by FoM on January 21, 2000 at 08:07:29 PT
Torri Minton, Chronicle Staff Writer
Source: San Francisco Chronicle 
The San Francisco Patients Resource Center is loaded with the stuff of a normal pot club. There are little Zip-loc bags of medicinal marijuana, bottles of tincture of liquid pot, hash oil and papers. But these are not just joint-rolling papers. They are bureaucratic documents. In what officials believe is an unprecedented step for a medical marijuana dispensary, the club at 350 Divisadero St. in Hayes Valley is requesting business permits from the city. 
``We are the first group I know of in the United States of America to ask a city for the various permits that any legitimate business must have,'' said Wayne Justmann, the center's director. ``We want official recognition.'' The Fire Department has inspected the center. Club managers have met with police, sheriff's deputies and aides to the district attorney. They have letters of support from Supervisors Gavin Newsom and Mark Leno. The center is applying for a nonprofit business license. It already is tax-exempt, because it is sponsored through St. Ephraim's House of the Orthodox Catholic Synod in San Francisco. Earlier this month, the Planning Commission approved the pot club's application for a permit to change the use of the space from ``retail sales'' -- the zoning for the cabinet maker that used to be there -- to ``medical marijuana clinic.'' ``They are a legal use in that space,'' said Isolde Wilson, a city planner, who could not re member a pot club ever requesting a permit. The building permit comes with several restrictions. The staff must prevent patients from loitering outside during business hours. Notices must be displayed at all entrances, urging clients to enter and exit quietly. No littering is allowed. There must be a lobby. If, as expected, the permit is approved by the Department of Building Inspection, the marijuana dispensary must appoint a community liaison to hear neighborhood concerns, and report back to the Planning Commission in a year to determine if the restrictions should be altered. While ``marijuana dispensary'' as a legitimate business may sound like an oxymoron, given that pot is illegal under federal law, medicinal cannabis is legal under California's Proposition 215. Marijuana buyers' clubs were shut down under former state Attorney General Dan Lungren. But current state Attorney General Bill Lockyer said last March that medicinal marijuana distribution could proceed in the city if it was done discreetly. A spokesman for Lockyer said yesterday it is unclear whether the pot club is making itself any more legitimate by getting the official stamp of approval from San Francisco. ``Everything in California is sort of unique to California,'' said spokesman Nathan Barankin. ``The state law is contrary to federal law, and no amount of permitting can fix that.'' Legislation to clear up ambiguities in Proposition 215 -- such as who is eligible to hand out pot prescriptions -- has been proposed by state Sen. John Vasconcellos, D- Santa Clara, and approved by the Assembly's Health Committee. Not everybody thinks having a marijuana dispensary on the block is a good idea, no matter how many permits it has. As a result, the center has been afflicted with the same kinds of small-business headaches that affect mainstream merchants. Some locals and shop owners complain that parking has gotten worse and vandalism has increased since the clinic moved in last August. One morning last week, four police cars pulled up outside the center to ask an unruly pot patient to leave. ``I don't think anybody's against medical marijuana,'' said longtime neighborhood activist Patricia Vaughey. ``It's fine they are in the neighborhood -- if they behave.'' The Koniuk family runs two businesses on the block, both for disabled customers. ``There aren't too many places like this in the country, so if this place acts like a magnet, we'll be overrun,'' said Walter Koniuk, who runs Custom Orthopedic Appliances. His son, Wayne Koniuk, who runs San Francisco Prosthetic Orthotic Service, said that with the clinic open from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day, parking is becoming intolerable. ``It could be the biggest threat to our business so far,'' he said. ``What's going to happen to those amputees who have to hop a half-block down the street, or are in a walker or a wheelchair, to try to get in the front door?'' Justmann, the center's director, said that if parking is getting worse, it is not because of the pot patients. Most of them take public transit, and with less than 2,000 square feet, the center is not big enough to hold many people anyway, he said. The big windows, bright lights, carpeted lobby and Fortune magazines make the center look, at first glance, like an optometrist's office. Pot for sale is carefully marked with names like OMF2, for Old Migrant Farmworker, said to be good medicine for appetite and depression problems, and HKSK, or Hindu Kush and Skunk, said to be good for treating nausea and insomnia. In the center of the room, patients play Rummy 500, eat lemon pound cake and smoke marijuana from joints, bongs and pipes. Even the smoke is legal. In a city where tough laws ban indoor tobacco smoking except in homes, patients are officially allowed to smoke marijuana inside the center. Nursing student Luphinaa Gaspar, 27, has lupus and uses pot to treat nausea. Paul Heaney, a Vietnam veteran who celebrated his 52nd birthday last week at the center, said pot takes the place of addictive pain pills. Sandi Patrick, 50, said pot helped her kick a two-year morphine habit that developed after she fell four stories. The former Norelco saleswoman suffered a spinal cord injury in 1985 that put her in a wheelchair and left her in excruciating pain. Patrick said marijuana helps her function. ``I have my life back, thanks to marijuana,'' she said. With about seven other medical marijuana clinics in the city operating without permits, why be different? ``It's been tough sledding,'' conceded Justmann, who is HIV-positive and uses pot to ease pain. ``The hoops we've had to jump through to make this legal, I don't know if I'd advise the next people to do it.'' However, he said, ``As we walked into a new millennium, we walked into a new mind-set about what medical cannabis should be. Someone has to bring it above-board, because technically, we are dealing with a health issue.'' Published: January 21, 2000©2000 San Francisco Chronicle  Page A19 Cannabis News Medical Marijuana Archives:http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml
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