The Medical Marijuana Task Force met Nov. 6 to consider zoning and permitting regulations for cooperatives. The task force will send its recommendations to the City Council for consideration in January. The task force unanimously voted to permit medical marijuana cooperatives to operate essentially in all commercial and industrial zones, including commercial/regional, office, visitor, community and neighborhood, as well as in planned district zones. Zones would be allowed to include light industry, heavy industry and industrial parks. Streets throughout San Diego are designated for specific commercial uses. For example, the streets hugging the Pacific Beach coast are considered commercial visitor, whereas the busy thoroughfare of Garnet Avenue is designated commercial community. Three of the task force members expressed concern about allowing medical marijuana cooperatives to set up in commercial neighborhood zones, however. The dissenting votes were Dave Martin, a business owner from Ocean Beach; Dave Potter, a community planner in Bay Park; and John Minto, a retired police officer from Santee. Steven Whitburn, chair of the North Park Planning Committee, said he doesn’t believe that commercial neighborhood zones are necessarily closer to residential areas than commercial community zones, although that is how the commercial zones are designated in the municipal code. City planner Dan Monroe clarified that the proximity of a commercial neighborhood zone to residential areas varies from community to community. “The reason I thought it was important to include commercial neighborhood is because we are hoping to provide safe and convenient access to medical marijuana to people who are sick,” Whitburn said. “If you are ill or elderly and need to get medical marijuana, then it should be as convenient as reasonably possible.” Permitting rules The task force unanimously voted that medical marijuana dispensaries will not be required to periodically renew their permits. Instead, a hearing officer can determine — on a case-by-case basis — whether a dispensary should have to renew its permit during the permitting process. “It became apparent to most of the task force members that those sorts of requirements would involve a lot of city staff time at a time when the city is faced with a budget deficit,” Whitburn said, adding that law enforcement can weed out the illegal cooperatives. The board also voted unanimously that dispensaries be required during the permitting process to show their plans to a public hearing officer to operate in a nonprofit capacity.