Title
Staff Report for Update on Medical Cannabis Dispensary Program
Staffreport
SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Staff recommends that the City Council authorize implementation of the following steps or provide direction to staff regarding any changes to the recommended approach.
BACKGROUND
In December 2013, the City Council approved a medical cannabis regulatory ordinance to facilitate the approval, regulation, and operation of one medical cannabis dispensary in San Leandro. The ordinance, in conjunction with the California Attorney General's Guidelines for the Security and Non-Diversion of Marijuana Grown for Medical Use (August 2008), imposes strict zoning, security, and operational requirements on dispensary applicants. To assist in developing the process that will be used to help inform the City Council's selection of the one dispensary operator, the City Manager created an inter-departmental stakeholder team consisting of staff from the Community Development, Finance, City Attorney, Police and Alameda County Fire and Alameda County Public Health departments. This team also assisted in the development of a Request for Proposals (RFP) that was used to recruit and enter into an agreement with ICF Resources, LLC, who will be leading the efforts to develop the dispensary selection process.
The ICF Team includes advance-degreed professionals with proven project management success, direct medical cannabis application processing experience, and the multidisciplinary technical expertise necessary to ensure a rigorous, consistent, and unbiased evaluation of dispensary applicants. ICF staff bring knowledge in relevant fields, including medical cannabis, application processing, public health, finance and economics, law, security, risk assessment, and community outreach. ICF also assisted the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in implementing a very similar, although larger scale, medical cannabis dispensary selection program.
The following recommendations...
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