2016 February PASO Magazine

ROUND TOWN
COUNTY PERSPECTIVE
BY BRUCE CURTIS
Five Alive Drive: What should
have been a smooth return from
visiting family in Tacoma quickly
became a white-frosted pageant of
carnage. Large, wet snowflakes rapidly
coated the pavement, enough, at
30 degrees, to turn I-5 into a skating
rink where three-ton SUVs fought
for our lane in a martial arts Capoeira.
Our minivan was no match for
these occasionally-controlled behemoths
but my 20-year-old son was
at the wheel and his mad Ninja reflexes
kept us out of the ditch.
Wrecked vehicles – I stopped
counting at 26 – littered the roadsides,
facing us in one-eyed horror, the other
headlight too crumpled to shine. Several
were on their roofs. An 18-wheeler,
twisted, faced us in the median,
bringing traffic to a halt.
Surprisingly, complacency, not
weather, seemed to be the main cause.
Most of the victims weren’t, say, Californians,
they had the local plates of
drivers who know snow – or should.
Wet, Wetter… Down here,
January saw El Niño come roaring
ashore with a vengeance as moist,
unstable air drove thunderstorms that
knocked out power to hundreds of
county residents, and dropping ten
feet of snow in the Sierras for ecstatic
snowboarders. By January 6th, rainfall
totals were boosted by nearly two
inches in 36 hours with more storms
queued up offshore.
While it is too soon to proclaim an
end to our epic drought, juicy rainfall
totals were a hopeful sign. If you’re
into watching the tally, real time water
resources at www.slocountywater.org
is a great place to go. Remote rain sensors
at dozens of locations countywide
continuously feed data to the site. For
instance, seasonal totals at the sheriff ’s
substation gauge in Templeton closed
in on six inches out of a normal 14.7”
in the New Year. My personal favorite
is the Rocky Butte sensor because
it sits in the watershed above Hearst
Castle that feeds reservoirs and Salinas
River streams. In the first week
of January, Rocky Butte had recorded
19” out of a seasonal norm of 39”.
High winds flipped a Paso Robles
mobile home – and I don’t mean it
was turned for a quick profit – while
sheds and water tanks became airborne
as locally intense thunderstorm
winds worked the terrain.
Lightning toasted runway light
controls at San Luis Obispo airport’s
control tower, forcing the
airport to close at night for several
days until replacement equipment
arrived. Tower personnel actually
evacuated after concerns a lightning-caused
fire might be smoldering
inside structure walls.
Paso Robles airport became a
good temporary – if not permanent
alternative for area pilots: generally
better weather and no control
tower are good reasons to fly out of
KPRB.
Dead (Head) Line: California’s
new medical marijuana regulations
have gone live and any cities
or counties that have not enacted
their own cultivation and dispensing
regulations will permanently
cede to California their authority to
do so.
The rash of new legislation is
causing ripples for medpot friend
and foe alike.
With the state deadline looming, the
board of supervisors followed the lead
of several cities, including Paso Robles,
that have already weighed in with regulations
controlling or banning outright
the cultivation of medpot.
“With the state deadline looming, the board of
supervisors followed the lead of several cities,
including Paso Robles, that have already weighed
in with regulations controlling or banning outright
the cultivation of medpot.”
By early January, both San Luis
Obispo and Paso Robles already had
full cultivation bans in place; nobody
can grow any sort of marijuana
inside city limits, although San Luis
Obispo has said it wouldn’t pursue
individuals growing pot for their
own medicinal use.
The county’s template is from
Mendocino County’s cultivation ordinance
and by early January, staff
had their marching orders to come up
with a draft urgency ordinance.
New state rules also allow cities
and counties to reduce restrictions if
experience warrants, but county counsel
says the best place to start is with a
total ban, because that option will be
gone, after March 1st.
One of the more debated elements
was whether to let “patients” grow
their own medpot under California’s
compassionate use act, but Paso
Robles decided to deny all cultivation.
Whether San Luis Obispo County
lawmakers will follow Mendocino’s
rather more liberal pot growing rules
remains to be seen; that county has a
fairly complicated set of rules affecting
size and location of pot farms.
There is currently an effort to push
the March 1st deadline forward, and
that would give local government extra
time to fine-tune local marijuana
regulations.
County board members already
had their hands full working on a
ban on designer synthetic drugs,
chemicals that work much like marijuana,
methamphetamine and cocaine.
so-called designer drugs are
an end-run to slow-to-keep-up drug
laws; the county is trying to nip this
cottage industry in the bud by banning
all such substances. That discussion
is set for February 2nd.
Dispensary Sues: A proposed
Nipomo medical marijuana dispensary
has launched what could become a
test case about government limits on
medical marijuana.
The first shot was fired last year
when county supervisors denied an
application for a medpot dispensary
in Nipomo. Sheriff Ian Parkinson and
district attorney Dan Dow both said
a dispensary would increase crime in
an area that is difficult for deputies to
reach in a hurry.
Debate rages over pot dispensaries
and crime rates; Denver experienced
slightly higher crime rates, but medicinal
marijuana advocates such as
NORML, use the reduction in marijuana
arrests to claim crime actually
goes down. A National Institute of
Health study found no relationship to
crime, while Denver District Attorney
Mitch Morrissey says dozens of murders
and hundreds of burglaries have
been linked to dispensaries, calling it
the industry’s “ugly secret.”
The applicant, Ethnobotanica responded
with a New Year’s gift of
a lawsuit. The dispensary applicant
claims there is no data showing dispensaries
are linked to crime. The suit,
which supervisor Adam Hill offhandedly
predicted when the board voted
to sustain an appeal against the dispensary,
alleges the board abused its
discretion when it denied the appeal.
No word on when the suit will go
to court but if the county loses, they
might be headed down another kind
of slippery slope.
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Paso Robles Magazine, February 2016