Clark County commissioners face more medical pot decisions
Clark County commissioners might make decisions Monday about medical marijuana dispensary applicants who haven’t received a special use permit from the county that is needed to set up shop.
The meeting is the latest for county officials after the county and the state’s Division of Public and Behavioral Health, through separate ranking systems, picked different groups of 18 applicants for dispensaries from among nearly 80 contenders for entry into an industry that is just starting in Nevada. The law allows unincorporated Clark County to have up to 18 dispensaries, but all of them need approval from both the state and the county.
Monday’s potential decisions might leave the county with just 10 dispensaries that sell the product to patients. Or the county could opt to give more permits to applicants who already have the needed approval from the state. That would put the county on track to have more dispensaries, improving the ability of patients to access dispensaries and purchase medical marijuana in their neighborhoods.
Because of a state law passed in 2013, Nevada will have dispensaries to sell the medical marijuana, as well as cultivation facilities that grow marijuana and production facilities that make different types of medical marijuana for a range of health problems including chronic pain, seizures and migraine headaches.
This all comes against a complex backdrop. It began in June, when county commissioners issued special use permits to 18 dispensary applicants. The state followed up with its separate process, which scored and ranked applicants. Now, only 10 have approval from both agencies, as dispensary applicants hope to open up in early 2015. Eight applicants have county approval but lack the state’s approval. A separate group of eight has approval from the state but not the county.
Fifty-eight applicants for dispensary permits are on the agenda of the special zoning meeting scheduled for 9 a.m. Monday at the County Government Center.
Commissioners have plenty of options. They could issue permits to any or all of the eight applicants the county passed over in June that went on to gain state approval. That move could boost the county’s dispensaries from 10 to as many as 18.
Or commissioners could reject the applicants, sticking only to the original 18 they permitted. The 18 dispensaries that already gained county permits are not on the meeting agenda.
Meanwhile, litigation filed by a group of applicants who gained county permits but not state approval is pending against the state’s Division of Public and Behavioral Health. County commissioners originally had a Dec. 3 meeting scheduled to make decisions about the issue but held off at the time because of the lawsuit. The county isn’t a defendant in the lawsuit.
Commission Chairman Steve Sisolak said Tuesday the county anticipates having more legal direction by the time commissioners meet Monday.
Commissioners will confer with their attorneys about options, including any directions from the judge assigned to the litigation case against the state.
Sisolak said it’s important that applicants aren’t kept in limbo, noting that setting up dispensaries is an expensive proposition with leasing costs that run in the tens of thousands of dollars.
Commissioner Susan Brager said she will be speaking with the district attorney’s staff to find out more about the options before the meeting.
She said it was a “little disheartening” for the state to pick eight different applicants after the county’s hard work of reviewing applications.
Any increase in dispensaries for the county will probably need county action rather than state action. State officials have said they won’t issue any more provisional certificates to applicants, as the 90-day period that the state law allows for reviewing applications has expired.
That’s become a bone of contention as officials and the industry get started in Nevada. Prior statements from state officials at public meetings indicated that the division would give certificates to more applicants if the top choices didn’t have approval from the local jurisdiction. But the state has said those comments were made without factoring in the 90-day review period. Those same statements are cited in the lawsuit filed by plaintiffs who received county approval.
During a court hearing Dec. 12, District Judge Kathleen Delaney gave attorneys until Dec. 19 to file further papers. The judge said she would rule “as soon as possible” after those motions but did not give a date.
Two lawyers for companies named as defendants in the case, William Simon Kemp and Frank Flansburg, said Tuesday they did not know when a ruling would be issued. Other lawyers couldn’t be reached for comment.
Review-Journal writer Eric Hartley contributed to this report. Contact Ben Botkin at bbotkin@reviewjournal.com or 702-405-9781. Find him on Twitter: @BenBotkin1.
