Long Beach voters may be faced with a choice between two competing medical marijuana ballot measures this November.

There’s also the possibility of a statewide ballot initiative that may legalize recreational use of the cannabis across the Golden State, but that’s another story.

In Long Beach, supporters backing a medical marijuana initiative that would allow dispensaries to legally return to the city have gathered enough signatures to potentially qualify the measure for November’s ballot, the city clerk announced Friday. The signatures still must be verified, however.

Also on Friday, Councilwoman Suzie Price announced that she and two other council members will ask their colleagues on the City Council on Tuesday to consider writing an alternative ballot measure that would allow four medical marijuana delivery services to legally operate in Long Beach.

The alternative proposal holds out the possibility that storefront dispensaries may eventually be allowed in Long Beach, she said.

“We’re trying to clarify, it’s a phased-in, deliberate approach. It’s not a delivery-only model,” Price said.

A board member for the Long Beach Collective Association, which backs the initial, more liberal proposal, disagreed. Board member Adam Hijazi said regulating brick-and-mortar dispensaries would be a more practical alternative than enforcing a policy that, at least for a time, would force authorized delivery services to compete against providers who don’t have Long Beach permits.

“I hope that the leaders are pragmatic about this, are realistic about how to regulate,” he said.

Price’s proposal

Long Beach has generally banned medical marijuana dispensaries since 2012, and a special citizens committee spent much of 2015 attempting to refine the Planning Commission’s draft medical marijuana ordinance that would have set rules for future dispensaries.

Council members, however, effectively decided to let voters figure out how to regulate medical marijuana after a disagreement over whether to allow brick-and-mortar dispensaries ended with the council deciding to scrap the proposed ordinance altogether.

Price had then asked the council to consider a plan similar to the one she, along with Council members Daryl Supernaw and Stacy Mungo, want to place on the ballot as an alternative to the pro-medical marijuana initiative that may be up for a vote this fall.

Price is asking the City Attorney’s office to draft an alternative, which would be similar to the law she favored before the council dropped the marijuana issue.

That plan would allow four delivery services to operate in Long Beach for six months before City Hall would conduct a cost-benefit analysis considering such factors as tax receipts and enforcement costs. If officials determine that medical marijuana deliveries would be a good thing, the delivery operators would get a chance to open dispensaries.

As many as seven dispensaries may ultimately be allowed in the city if the council votes to place Price’s measure on the ballot and her proposal also wins voter approval.

Price said she wants a gradual approach to medical marijuana, in part because it’s her view that city government’s finances are too strained to burden police with new duties to enforce a medical marijuana law.

Initiative campaign

The Long Beach Collective Association and United Food and Commercial Workers Local 324 are sponsoring the well-funded campaign to place a medical cannabis initiative on the Nov. 8 ballot.

That measure would tie the number of dispensaries to the city’s population. The U.S. Census Bureau’s July 2015 population estimate shows some 474,000 people living in Long Beach, so the initiative would allow something in the area of 26 to 32 dispensaries.

The proposal favored by medical marijuana advocates also calls for 1,000-foot buffer zones to separate dispensaries from each other, schools and beaches. The initiative would also call for 600-foot buffers keeping dispensaries away from parks and libraries and set a 6 percent tax rate on dispensary operators’ gross receipts.

Long Beach voters approved a 6 percent to 10 percent tax on what may be considered to be theoretical dispensaries in 2014. Although the Collective Association supported that measure, Hijazi said a 10 percent levy would be too steep.

Long Beach City Clerk Maria de la Luz Garcia’s office announced Friday the measure’s supporters collected slightly more than 35,000 signatures, a number that would be well above the roughly 24,900 signatures necessary for qualification.

The raw count clears the way for Garcia’s office to begin checking a random sample of signatures to verify that proponents have indeed collected enough signatures from registered Long Beach voters to put the measure up for a vote this fall.

If the petition has enough valid signatures, the City Council would have the option of adopting the measure as law or leaving the decision up to voters.