The Eureka City Council during its Tuesday evening meeting unanimously approved allowing on-site cannabis consumption facilities within city limits.

During a meeting that lasted more than four hours, the council also approved another year of funding for Betty Kwan Chinn’s Blue Angel village, extended a moratorium on digital signs, and approved establishing a community task force to research public banking.

On-site consumption

Community Development Director Rob Holmlund likened on-site cannabis facilities to bars, being that patrons would be able to purchase and consume or smoke cannabis. With this development, Eureka is still far from actually seeing such a business open up.

“We’re allowing them to begin the marathon,” Holmlund said. “There’s still an awful lot of permitting and approval before people can begin operating.”

At the last council meeting, concerns were raised about inexperienced consumers and the possibility of impaired driving. Holmlund said noting THC dosage limits and requiring facilities to provided education on safe consumption practices were possible solutions. He also offered suggestions to deter impaired driving including requiring businesses to have customer transportation plans, the implementation of designated driver education or posting information about taxis.

During the public comment period, a variety of perspectives were offered.

One concerned resident said “a lot of people don’t realize that marijuana is a deadly substance” and that “marijuana smoke is the same as environmental tobacco smoke or worse.”

“There’s no safe levels of use,” she added.

Local attorney Kathleen Bryson however cast doubt on the legitimacy of the studies, saying that while she hadn’t seen them, many studies on the effects of cannabis are outdated.

“If we’re really worried about the health of our people, we need to go back to Prohibition,” she said. “But people still drank.”

Bryson represents clients in the cannabis industry, she said.

“Our product is clean because we’re regulating it, it’s organic, it’s as pure as we can make it,” she said.

Comparing cannabis to cigarette smoke, Bryson said, is “insulting to the farmers in this country, in this state, in this county who’ve worked so hard to make this plant clean.”

Councilman Austin Allison echoed a similar thought.

“At the end of the day, I think it’s really interesting that we draw such a tight grasp over cannabis being dangerous when there’s so many places to purchase and consume alcohol … with much greater risks for health and to others,” he said. “I don’t know why ‘reefer madness’ still subsists.”

Included in the council’s vote to approve on-site consumption ordinances was a delay on an ordinance allowing cannabis businesses to have signs, which is in effect until February 2019.

Digital signs

A previously passed moratorium on digital signs was extended for 10 months and 15 days.

During the public comment period, one speaker threatened the city with litigation if the moratorium was extended.

The council voted unanimously to extend the moratorium.

Philip Santos can be reached at 707-441-0506.