California County Mulls $40 Fee For Marijuana Gardens

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Photo: Andreas Fuhrmann/The Record Searchlight
Patient Donna Will tends to her garden at her Tehama County, California home. Both Will and her partner, Jerrey Doran, are medical marijuana patients and also grow for other patients.

​Tehama County Supervisors on Tuesday will consider starting a $40 registration fee for medical marijuana gardens.

The fee wouldn’t be set at the Tuesday vote, but the vote could establish a May 4 public hearing where the board would consider the fee, reports Geoff Johnson at the Red Bluff Daily News.

Supervisors on April 6 already approved a medical marijuana cultivation policy prohibiting growth within 1,000 feet of schools, churches or bus stops, linking the number of plants allowed to parcel size, and requiring medical marijuana growers to register their gardens with the Tehama County Health Services Agency.

Growers would be required to disclose the number of their plants, the names of everyone on the lease, all qualified cannabis patients receiving the marijuana, their medical recommendations and a notarized letter from the property owner if the applicants rent, according to sample registration papers, the Daily News reports.
The proposed $40 fee would fall just short of covering the cost of staff processing registration, which is estimated to be $40.37 per garden, according to county documents.
The ordinance is a complaint-driven policy. It will only come into play if someone contacts the county, and will be enforced “at the discretion of responding sheriff’s deputies.”
Growers will have two weeks to either appeal an enforcement to supervisors or comply. At the end of 14 days, the county could enter the property, destroy the garden and charge the owner for the removal, the Daily News reports.
Medical marijuana advocates have fought the measure. Meetings have been divided between speakers in favor of the measure and those against it, according to the Daily News.
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