Coronavirus: Authorities prompt Santa Clara County to reverse restriction on in-store leisure cannabis sales

State and regional lawmakers are advising Santa Clara County officials to reverse a choice made last week to prohibit the sale of leisure cannabis in stores.

When Bay Area authorities first set up a stay-at-home order in mid-March, Santa Clara County considered marijuana dispensaries were essential organisations, and as such, allowed to stay open.

But simply 2 weeks later on, when it was revealed last week that the region’s shelter-at-home order would be encompassed May 3, the county included a new terms that just enabled dispensaries to sell medical marijuana in shops and required that leisure marijuana be offered through shipments.

Santa Clara County seemed the only Bay Location county to present this new difference, as defined in a Frequently Asked Question page on its site

The decision not just stimulated reaction from owners and operators of dispensaries but has likewise raised concerns for some regional and state officials that represent the county’s locals.

San Jose council members Pam Foley, Magdalena Carrasco and Maya Esparza penned a letter to Santa Clara County Public Health Officer Sara Cody on Monday requesting that she “reconsider only enabling medical cannabis to be bought within a shop, curbside, or by delivery.”

” Today, a local can go out of a supermarket with a bottle of Tylenol, however that exact same individual is not able to pull up curbside for discomfort relief from CBD oil. These individuals in need of relief must not be rejected safe access to marijuana during this critical time,” the council members composed in their letter.

Instead of barring dispensaries from offering leisure marijuana in shops, the officials are asking the county to execute “manageable requirements,” such as the brand-new social distancing procedures that all other necessary businesses that have been permitted to stay open must embrace. Those procedures include restricting the variety of customers allowed in a shop at a time, establishing work stations at least six feet apart and performing regular sanitation schedules.

State lawmakers Assemblyman Ash Kalra and Senator Jim Beall followed in the San Jose council members’ steps and also wrote a letter to the county on Monday resolving their problems with the modifications to the order.

Kalra and Beall raised a number of concerns, consisting of a possibility of pushing customers to the black market, long-term impacts on the practicality of dispensaries to fulfill medical marijuana requirements and an absence of clearness for enforcement of the county’s general shelter-in-place order.

” The existing order has unintentionally resulted in confusion and places additional requirements on currently thinly released police and licensing enforcement personnel,” they composed in their letter.

Hirsh Jain, director of federal government affairs for the San Jose dispensary Caliva, called the lack of clarity “unfortunate”, adding that it “puts both dispensaries and those that count on them for their medicine in a challenging position.”

The county’s order states that just “medical cannabis” can be purchased in-store, however does not define what a “medical marijuana” purchase is.

Santa Clara County Counsel James Williams stated in an e-mail Monday night that the order does not state that people are needed to have medical cannabis cards to purchase marijuana products at a dispensary. However, he said, some police are “selecting to use [the card] as a proxy for whether a person is looking for access for medical purposes.”

Williams did not state whether the county supports the choice by some law enforcement agencies to request a medical cannabis card upon entry to a dispensary.

But he safeguarded the specification by saying that its function– in positioning with the overall goals of the shelter-in-place order– is to reduce the variety of people gathering in a particular area.

” Of note, many letters note the great deals of individuals who might be looking for in-person access to dispensaries,” Williams wrote in an email. “Even for vital services, everybody is highly advised to stay at home as much as possible and to reduce and combine trips in order to minimize contacts to the greatest degree possible.”