PLACENTIA – The City Council voted 3-2 Tuesday night to allow medical marijuana businesses in town, including the first regulated growing operation in Orange County.

The law, which must come before the council for a second vote in two weeks, calls for one dispensary, one cultivation site, one manufacturing site, one testing lab, one service for transportation between locations and one delivery service. After 18 months, the council could allow an additional cultivation site and one more dispensary.

“I am a five-year breast cancer survivor,” said Linda Lucio, who will be on a rheumatoid inhibitor for five years. “I would hope that if I had to resort to something such as an edible medical marijuana product it would be accessible to me in my hometown. I’ve heard of many survivors saying that this has been one of the few things that they have been able to use to reduce that pain.”

Numerous residents spoke at the hours-long meeting in opposition of the law, including Andrew Bremer, who has four young children and has lived in the city for eight years.

“I have witnessed first hand the dangers of marijuana,” said Bremer, a police officer in Orange. “We do not need to bring this problem into our wonderful little city.”

Steve Brooks said he lived across the street from an unathorized dispensary and the number of “seedy individuals” that came and went was alarming.

“It took a great deal of effort to get rid of them,” Brooks said. “Now that they’ve been legally removed from the city you want to legally bring them back in? Are you nuts?”

Gerritt Hale, of Laguna Niguel, said his mother has cancer and medical marijuana helped relieve her pain. He was one of several speakers who said having a medical pot dispensary in town gives patients access to the medicine they need without having to go far.

Placentia has banned dispensaries since 2008.

“She was able to eat, she was able to feel better, she was able to tolerate the treatment,” Hale said.

The ordinance calls for the dispensary to be close to the Placentia-Linda Hospital. It will also have to be at least 600 feet away from any school, church, park, large daycare, library or drug or alcohol rehabilitation center.

City Administrator Damien Arrula said the 41-page ordinance meets the needs of patients while also including demanding regulations to minimize impacts on the community, such as requiring background checks on employees, surveillance cameras at marijuana businesses and odor control.

Those interested in operating a medical marijuana business in the city would need to submit an application to the city. After being vetted, applicants would go through an interview process. The City Council would select the applicants that get a license in each category.

Arrula said the cost of establishing the law will be recovered through the selection and application process. He said no decision has been made on whether to tax the medical marijuana businesses, which would require voter approval.

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