Good evening and welcome to the March 7th, 2024 meeting of the City of Santa Cruz Planning Commission. Could we start with a roll call, please? Commissioner Dan? Here. Gordon? Here. Kennedy? Here. McKelvie? Here. Paul Hamas? Here. Conway? Commissioner Thompson? I'm here. And I'm here as well. Thank you very much. And we'll start. Do we have any statements of disqualification this evening? Seeing none, we will move on to oral communications. This is the part of the agenda in which the public is welcome to address the commission on items that are not on tonight's agenda but that do fall under the purview of the Planning Commission.  I don't know what the sound it sounds like. I want to make sure that it's... Y'all here? Yes. If there's a TV problem, I'm sure they'll come and let us know because it seems like the mic is cutting in and out. Okay, so we will start with a motion to approve the minutes of February 15th, 2024. So moved. And is there a second? All second. And everyone who approves, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. And I'm sure you're about to do this, but we should do oral communications too. Oh, I had started that when the mic went crazy. Thank you. Sorry about that. And I still need... Is anyone voting against the motion for minutes? Okay, we're jumping around tonight. So again, to return to oral communication, you are invited to address the commission on... We're not going to have a meeting with disturbances or disrespect for the public agenda. Oh, okay. Thank you for telling me that. You know what, I just... I can't wait outside until she's... Thank you very much. Very welcome to participate and listen to the meeting. I appreciate that. If anybody would like to address the commission on anything not on tonight's agenda, please come forward now. Seeing none, we will move on to the matter for tonight. On tonight's agenda is consideration of a project proposed at 1129 Mission Street, project number CP23-01-06, administrative use permit to establish a cannabis retail facility on a parcel in the mixed use medium density zone district and within the Mission Street urban design plan. Could we have a staff report, please? Good evening, Chair and Commissioners, Ryan Baines, Senior Planner. So, yes, the proposal we have before us tonight is a cannabis retail outlet within an existing commercial building located on the northeast corner of Mission Street and Laurel Street in the MUM zone district. The building was occupied by Emily's Bakery for many years and the 2,878 square foot building is being proposed in a split into two commercial spaces, including 1,000 square feet for Emily's Kitchen & Café and 1,878 square feet for a new cannabis retail store by the name of the Hook Santa Cruz. So, the zoning ordinance... Excuse me, are we supposed to be seeing the staff report? Oh, yeah, sorry. Sorry about that, I didn't look up and assumed it was visible. Let me go back just a second. Well, having technical difficulties. Let me go ahead and I'll just speak and then when I catch up to the slide I will. So, as I was saying, the zoning ordinance allows cannabis retail sales in MUM zone district with approval and administrative use permit and subject to our cannabis regulations which is section 2412 of the municipal code. The zoning code allows cannabis retail sales with approval of an administrative use permit, a city cannabis retailer license, and the obtaining of a state cannabis retailer or nonprofit license. So, the applicant recently applied for a transfer of one of the five cannabis retail licenses that are available within the city. That license transfer has been approved by the city with final administrative steps being completed to transfer the license from WAM by the therapies to the current applicant. WAM has been a long time local dispensary that has been committed to compassionate care dedicated to both accessible and affordable cannabis for individuals with serious illnesses. The Hook will have a partnership with WAM to ensure that the affordable cannabis reaches community members in dire need and the collaboration with WAM will ensure that the segment of the sales goes toward providing free or sliding scale cannabis to low income patients suffering from severe medical conditions like cancer, AIDS, MSN, and epilepsy. So, the subject parcel has a mixed use medium density general plan designation. This designation is intended to accommodate businesses that serve the general needs of the community including retail, such as what is being proposed, service and office establishments, grocery stores and furniture and those type of uses. So, the cannabis industry in Santa Cruz as a whole which is not just retail but manufacturing, distribution, there's labs. Many cannabis uses within the city of Santa Cruz and it benefits the public by providing additional high quality jobs within the city including scientists and other technical positions. The Hook would be one of two cannabis retail stores that serves the west side neighborhoods as well as visitors to the city. The land use element and economic development element of the general plan lists goals and policies that support the proposed use at this location. I've listed several in the staff report and I just pulled a few here just for the presentation, fostering and retaining a locally owned business and startup. I'm pursuing the expansion of employment intensive uses that have long-term economic viability and so on. That said, the general plan's guiding principles express the city's commitment to education through our schools, educational systems and programs. So, the Santa Cruz City School District has expressed concerns about the proposed business due to its proximity to roots to and from Santa Cruz High School and Mission Middle School. Opponents to the proposed use indicate that the normalization of cannabis used due to repeated exposure to business patrons and signage or the easy access to the dispensary could result in increased use of cannabis among students and such use would have implications on children's health and development. So, while the proposed use is consistent with a number of the general plan policies that I previously discussed, the project components would suggest that the general plan inconsistencies could be exposed with these three policies regarding juvenile behavior and delinquency, the Santa Cruz City Schools and private schools to provide drug prevention and implementing safe routes to schools. The sub-departure is also located in the Mission Street Urban Design Plan. The project, the vision of the plan is to re-establish Mission Street as a vibrant commercial corridor that recognizes and carefully balances its functions as both a state highway and local serving commercial street to enhance economic and social vitality of the Mission Street corridor by creating a mix of uses that serve both community and visitor needs and establish the Mission Street corridor as an attractive pedestrian oriented district and encourage local serving commercial uses to reduce automobile use. So, the project accomplishes these goals. In regards to some of the details of the actual use itself, the proposed retail use would be conducted entirely within the existing commercial building. The proposed hours are from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. It should be noted that our cannabis ordinance allows them to operate between 7 and 10. But they are limiting it from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. currently. The Hook Santa Cruz would employ up to 10 individuals on site and anticipate up to three commercial deliveries entering and exiting the site per day, mainly between 8.30 to 3.00, Monday through Friday. The business would provide labeled package products, sell them directly to consumers, both in medical and adult use markets, and no cannabis products would be visible from the exterior of the store, and customers would leave the building with products in opaque packaging. These are all standard requirements of all of our retail businesses and are part of the performance standards in our ordinance. The applicant is proposing a secure facility as provided a detailed security plan that meets the requirements of the State of California and the City of Santa Cruz regulations. The plan includes a perimeter security, lighting, and video surveillance. These measures include installing physical barriers such as security gates, high security steel exterior doors, integrated camera and alarm system would be installed, as well as exterior cameras equipped with license plate readers, and the Santa Cruz Police Department has reviewed and accepted the security plan. As I mentioned, there are performance standards in our cannabis ordinance that are required for all cannabis uses. The standards regulate criteria such as security, noise, odor, no product usage on site, hours of operation, loitering, little removal, and advertising. So the proposed use has been reviewed and is consistent with all of the performance standards laid out in our ordinance. So in regards to siting criteria, our ordinance requires that cannabis retail sales facilities maintain a 600-foot buffer from schools, parks, daycare centers, and youth centers, as well as other cannabis retail outlets. The proposed project meets all of these specified setback requirements, including maintaining a distance of approximately 850 feet from Santa Cruz High and 1,360 feet from Mission Hill Middle School. So while there is a fairly long history of cannabis ordinances here in Santa Cruz, the current ordinance was adopted following a state legalization of cannabis in 2017. Establishment of the ordinance included input from various departments, including obviously the police department, economic development, city manager's office, city attorney's office, as well as went through several numerous hearings before the Planning Commission and the city council and gathered input at those public hearings. So state law required a 600-foot buffer, and at the time, as they were going through this process, the police department suggested that the recreational marijuana retail businesses be treated similar to our tobacco businesses, which require a 600-foot buffer from high-risk alcohol outlets, such as liquor stores and bars. So in November of 2017, after several public hearings and discussions, the city council adopted the new ordinance establishing the 600-foot buffer and limited the number of retail establishments to five. So the map that's before you indicates the locations within the city that meet the locational restrictions. As you can see, the green areas are the areas outside of the buffer zones that would allow retail, and it's fairly limited, as you can see, based on the map. So the zoning code established its findings to be determined by the appropriate hearing body in order to prove an administrative use permit for cannabis use. Upon the review of these findings, staff found that they can be made based on the information provided by the applicant and the proposed retail use meeting the required zoning code requirements as we previously discussed. Concerns have been expressed by the school district and opponents over the location of the proposed use and its proximity to Santa Cruz High School and Mission Middle School, raising the question as to whether the application meets the intent of finding number two, which I have listed here, regarding the cannabis retail use being located within proximity of an incompatible use such as a children's school, daycare facility, or youth center. While the use meets the objective standard of 600 feet from schools and daycares and youth centers, the question arises as to whether the cannabis retail retail use could be considered both within proximity and, quote, adversely affect the health and safety or welfare of proximate uses, namely students of the high school and the middle school. A similar argument could be made for finding four, which speaks to the use being compatible with other neighboring uses in the surrounding area, particularly those used primarily by persons under the age of 18. These findings are more subjective, obviously, than the strict 600 foot separation requirement, hence the administrative use permit being a discretionary decision by hearing by. The Santa Cruz Police Department has reviewed both the cannabis retail license transfer as well as the subject administrative use permit application with the project outside of the buffer zone and the stringent ID requirements for adults 21 years old and older. The police department did not express any concerns with the proposed location. Additionally, as part of the review of this application, police researched their records for other cannabis retail outlets in the city and found no complaints or service calls for cannabis sales to minors. Based on these facts, it could be argued that the proposed retail use does not qualify as within proximity of a school and that it would not adversely affect the health or safety of students. It could also be argued that it could be unfair to the applicant to kind of move the goal post, so to speak, claiming the established 600 buffer to be insufficient. So just some food for thought. Many concerns about the proposed use at this location have been expressed by the school district and parents of the Santa Cruz High and Mission Hill Middle School students and those concerns are certainly understandable. A number of students from both schools walk and bike by this location each day with a signalized intersection of Laurel and Mission Street serving as one of the two primary locations where students cross Mission Street and the presence of a dispensary could be conveyed as normalizing cannabis use. So I should say also it's not uncommon for underage individuals to obtain fake IDs or medicinal cannabis cards. So in addition to providing a letter of opposition, the superintendent of schools has also included a number of articles on the impact of THC on the youth, the impact of dispensaries to schools, the acquiring of fake IDs and relevant school data on marijuana use within the school district. And that's all been provided as part of the staff report. To add to the discussion, the applicant has also provided data regarding the effects of marijuana on young people and the effectiveness of these at cannabis outlets assessing the ease of access to marijuana by underage patrons. While the general population must be 21 years or older to purchase recreational cannabis, adults 18 years and older who have a doctor's prescription for medical cannabis can also legally purchase cannabis at retail stores. Anecdotes have pointed to ease of obtaining a medical cannabis card which have raised concerns about senior high school students having legal access to cannabis products, which they then could distribute to others. To combat this concern, the applicant has voluntarily agreed to not sell cannabis to anyone under the age of 19 even if they have a valid medical cannabis prescription. And that's been included as a condition of approval with the resolution for approval if you decide to go that route. So, in conclusion, the proposed cannabis retail use meets all of the objective standards laid out in the city zoning code. That being said, subjective findings raise some questions as to the potential impacts the use could have on high school and middle school students, given the proximity to the high school and the sites location at the Key Mission Street crossing. There are certainly merits to both arguments and both sides present valid points. Hence, staff recommends that the planning commission consider the information provided and make a determination to approve or deny the application based on one of the resolutions provided with the staff report. I'm available for any questions. Also, I'll mention that the applicant as well as the superintendent of schools both have presentations. Okay, thank you. This is usually the point in time where the commission asks questions of staff and are there any questions at this time? Commissioner McKelvie. Thanks for the presentation and thank you for everyone for being here. So, just a question about the bakery proposal, it's called a bakery in the report, but it's being described differently a little bit in your presentation. So, is that something that's already proposed or something that because it's an existing use, it's simply assumed that it will be that down the road? Is it the same? Will it be the same people running it? Is there any more information on that at this point? The applicant might be able to provide that information and there is still going to remain that 1,000 square feet, I think. That'll be a bakery use. I think it's a principle permitted use. It is, yeah. And it's an existing use. I'm just wondering if there could be more information provided about that. I'd be curious about there was a slide before the SCPD comments. I don't know if you can go back to it, but it mentioned... I'm not sure what... You know, the more people show up, the worse the technology goes. What's funny is, we came in an hour ahead of time and of course tested everything and it was fine. Of course, when I go actually do the presentation, it was getting stuck on me. Right before the slide, I think that said SCPD meetings or input or something like that. I don't know. Was that the findings? Yeah. Okay. Slide show. Okay, so it says... Sorry? I'll leave it for now. The proposed use is compatible with the sizes and types of other neighboring use in the surrounding area, particularly those used primarily by persons under the age of 18. So can you tell me about how was there... Is there something, it's more information you can give us about that? So is your question regarding our interpretation of the finding? It says it's compatible, but then it goes on to say particularly those used primarily by persons under the age of 18 and maybe I'm missing the point completely, but I'm wondering given that we're saying that the conditions state explicitly for 19 and over, what is the compatibility criteria you're describing there? I mean, they're kind of two different. I mean, this is what was adopted by the city council in 2017 as a finding for cannabis use. And so basically this is one of those discretionary subjective findings that you as a commission need to discuss whether you think that the proposal is one within what was called out as within proximity, two, whether it's compatible with the school, I mean really it's the two schools that are the primary, that are the uses that have people under the age of 18. So if you think that's going to be a negative impact on that. Yeah, that's the question. And then in terms of the 19, I mean that's basically a condition that the applicant has volunteered based on what he's heard and the concerns he's heard from the school district, from parents to not sell to anyone under the age of 19. And then the last thing was talked about stringent screening of identification, et cetera. I think that might have been part of the SCPD comments, but either I don't know, perhaps it's something that the applicant could provide or if you have more information about that I'd appreciate hearing that as well. I mean I think what we're just referring to is that state law see requirements in terms of security and those requirements in terms of providing ID, security guard at the door to check IDs, all those type of things. And so it's not necessarily more, it just meets the criteria that we've laid out. Nothing more. Thank you. Commissioner Dan. Actually I was going to reserve my comments for after public hearing, but because you were asking a question about finding number four, I believe I remember the intent behind the creation of that finding and I believe that it was to address other uses that might be incompatible, like I don't know, like a kid's gym or a candy store or something that wasn't covered by the school, daycare, park just to cover basic things. Sorry. That's the end of my comment. We do have a tech gremlin tonight, so thank you for your patience everyone. Thank you. Were there other questions? This is a time for questions of staff from commissioners. Yes. Thank you to the chair. I do have questions for staff. It was suggested that I make a quick statement just while I am a City Schools employee. I read the agenda packet including the project plans, the articles of the scientific nature about cannabis use and so on and so forth. I think it was just so everything's above board and everybody knows where I stand on this or where, you know, where I work. So yeah, a couple questions for staff on I think it was the administrative use permit number four same area that Commissioner McKelvie was talking about. Let me pull up the proposed use is compatible with the sizes and by persons under the age of 18 and then also number two where it talks about incompatible uses near looks like particularly youth uses but I'm just curious if there's anything in the administrative use permit that has anything to do with alcohol or drug rehab facilities or anything of that nature. In the ordinance? In the, yeah. No, I don't believe there's anything. Not particularly? Okay. You mean a buffer between rehab facilities? I believe that is part of that. Yeah, so at the end of weeks avenue, I call it the one way, there is as far as I know a sober living environment. It may be a program. I'm not sure what goes on there but I know it's related to that. I'm just curious if there's anything, any criteria in the ordinance or anything along those lines. Now, just to clarify, so you're asking me if there's anything in our zoning ordinance regarding cannabis retail uses and a buffer from something outside of what's listed. Oh, is this exhausted for the cannabis ordinance in terms of? Let's see here. Actually, I don't know that I have the actual ordinance in my presentation but I can look up and see what the exact wording is but I don't believe there's anything that specifies that. Okay. Mr. Butler. I've got the ordinance open right here so I can read it for you. Excuse me. 24.12.1320 use types and citing criteria in subsection 5 the second paragraph of subsection 5 although it's not numbered number 2, it's just a separate paragraph. Cannabis retail sales facilities including non-profit and micro businesses shall not be located within 600 feet as measured from the property lines from any school that the state is providing instruction in kindergarten or any grades 1 through 12 daycare center or youth center as defined in the state of California health and safety code section 1, 1, 3, 5, 3.1 that is in existence at the time the state license for the facility is issued. In addition, no retail sales facility including a business holding a nonprofit state nonprofit or it's just the school's the daycare centers, the youth centers and the other cannabis retail sales facilities and I'll note the map just so that members of the public are aware. This is in your staff reports. So you know but the map that was shown does not include the locations of other. Cannabis retailers. It's just the location of all of the locations and parks with play structures. Thank you. Okay, great. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions from commissioners of staff? Question of Kennedy. I think my question was like do the buffers update as like uses come and go and Lee kind of answered it by saying like what's in place when the facility opens. That's not a question anymore. My other question is well along with that. Do you remember like alcohol, tobacco? Do they have similar buffers? Yeah, I mean my memory is it's pretty much the same. I kind of. So I think when they were considering the cannabis adoption of the latest cannabis ordinance in 2017, that was one of the thing that one of the police department referenced was consistency with the tobacco section. That's a 600 foot buffer as well as my understanding. It's a different question because we had a lot of those to start with. Okay. So then my last question was like the tax on cannabis like provides a good amount of revenue and I know that's been distributed fairly cool things. But do you know like he described that more and I'm sorry if you don't know it's not really your scope. But yeah, unfortunately I don't I don't get to involve the council aspects of taxing. Sure. So there are varying taxation levels for different types of cannabis. The commission may recall that a few years ago there was a vote for children's fund that dedicates percentage of the cannabis tax revenue to various nonprofits that provide services for children in the community. Right now, I believe that that call for services is actually open and I don't have the specific number but it's around $800,000 that we have in that fund for various youth programs in the community. So folks that are operating nonprofits, it's a little plug to take a look at that right now because there is money available from the city. All right, thanks. That's a bit beyond our purview but I just was curious about it. So thank you. You're welcome. Is that it? That's it. Okay. I have a couple of questions of staff also. First of all, if the age limit, first of all, my first question is can the city impose an age limit of 21 instead of 19? Okay. Hi, I'm Cassie Bronson. I'm the assistant city attorney. Happy to take this question. The city's municipal code is pretty broad in that there are certainly a few provisions which would suggest that you can impose conditions intended to promote public health safety welfare and to prevent nuisance type conditions. With that said, you know, I haven't seen a specific case law on this and I'd be happy to consider anything that the applicant has to consider. This is the first time I'm considering the question. So that's basically my response is that the municipal code seems to suggest, yes, there may be some case law I'm unaware of. I'd be happy to consider. I will say the city, even if the city raised the age limit in through these conditions, it wouldn't make it a crime for that person to purchase cannabis, right? So that's set by state law. That would just be a condition of the permit and if that condition were violated, then they would be, you know, administrative procedures that might come into play, but there would be no criminal activity related to selling cannabis to somebody who was between the ages of 18 and 21. Thank you for that and for taking that cold. I appreciate that. And a second related question is let's just say the age limit was 21 instead of 19. How far would 18 to 21 year old have to travel to the United States for medical use? So in other words, how far is the closest? And that's also a cold question, so. So we currently have four dispensaries, five total, obviously. I think the closest might be on the west side, like off of Swift or Fair over there. Then there's, I think it's at Cana Cruz, that's in Cana Cruz, which as a crow flies maybe closer, actually. And then there's two dispensaries on Ocean Street, one being Reefside on your Marianne's right there and then Kind Peoples. So they're all, I think I looked at that a while ago and I want to say they were all around a mile or so distant from this location. Okay. Thank you. That's helpful. And finally, this is just a question on our process tonight. Is there a time constraint pushing on approval of this permit other than the usual developments been in process for a long time? We don't have any other constraints. Okay. Just wanted to know that. Okay. Thank you very much. And with that, the applicant has a presentation and could you tell us how long you expect to take? I actually requested earlier that I go after Superintendent Munro. So if you guys would allow that request, I'd greatly appreciate it. I don't have a problem with that. In that case, could we ask Superintendent Munro for her presentation? Where Ryan is getting my presentation out. Good evening. Thank you to the commissioners and city staff for all you do to serve our community. Tonight we just have a brief presentation to talk about the concerns that we've shared. And I want to be clear that what we're asking for is a revisit on the ordinance and the distance that the city allows cannabis dispensaries near school sites. And I could have you right in advance that please. I want to make sure that we aren't against medical marijuana. We aren't against legal dispensaries. That's not our intent. I regret the impact that this would have on a business owner. But I also believe it's our obligation as a community of adults to create safe healthy environments for the children and youth in our community. And given all of the benefits that the marijuana industry and medical marijuana brings to our community, it can't obscure that those benefits should not obscure the impacts and the concerns and the health and safety concerns that it raises for children and youth that use cannabis and their developing brains. And I'm going to have some professionals, parents, principals here today to share with you information about why we are concerned about the proximity to our two schools of this proposed business. So we can advance the slides. I'm going to invite Derek Kendall, principal at Mission Hill Middle School and Michelle Poirier, principal at Santa Cruz High School. Hello. If you could advance the slide, please. My name is Derek Kendall. I'm the principal at Mission Hill Middle School and I'm here this evening with my friend and colleague Derek Kendall. Both of our schools, we have the mission to create an environment where every student can excel academically, emotionally, and socially. And with students vaping pot on the increased seven-fold in America and vaping pot becoming much more potent, opening a dispensary within such a close proximity to our schools will only make our progress. The proposed location at Laurel and Mission is where students use the stoplight and crosswalk to safely access the north and south sides of Mission Street. Every school day, students use this safe crossing to walk to and from home. And they also frequent existing businesses at this intersection such as the food bin, the taco truck, and the bus stop. Students under the influence of marijuana has doubled in recent years and more and more youth are developing cannabis use disorder. And while I recognize and respect that this particular business may not be directly responsible for those statistics, this business and this location increases the risk of our students becoming a part of this statistic. And to speak of this, I would like to thank you for your time. Thank you. I'm grateful for the time you have to allow us to speak to you around especially our mission of educating the youth of Santa Cruz to be prepared for college and career. And as my colleague, Mr. Kendall mentioned this increase in vaping. Vaping is very significant. The number of schools have had an increase in students under the influence that have doubled in a single year. And so we see that there's quite a bit of widespread use. If you can advance the slide. Thank you. So student focus groups were conducted at several sites, high school sites, and widespread statements by students that it's super easy to obtain as well. So it's a constant battle for us on campus because again of the widespread use and the ease of access. And when we talk about the ideas of moving the bar from 18 to a 19 to a 21, the fake ID and high school students know this. My own students, my own two children certainly would have attested to that. And when we talk about a 21, the fake IDs make that a negligible distinction because I have 16 and 17 year olds on my campus who can certainly pass for 18, 19 or 21. I have 18 and 19 year olds on my campus. I have 18 and 19 year olds on my campus. And as Mr. Kendall pointed out, that is a very, very fair, heavily populated thoroughfare for our students. A student can very quickly conduct sort of a business negotiation or quickly obtain and make it back to campus very quickly without it needing to become an alarm because they are late to their third period class. So we're really about not, we're celebrating marijuana as an economic solution and for what it does to the community.  I am sensitive and to that use but what we're talking about is eliminating or minimizing the exposure that students have to this because it is very deleterious to students learning when their brains are altered by a high level of THC. Thank you. And I'm going to bring in a medical director. Hi. Thank you for having me. My name is Sarah Moff. I'm a pediatrician and a medical director in our community. I appreciate you having me here. I wanted to talk today about like the why behind what we're talking about today. So why do we care? So we know that marijuana can have effects on the developing brain that can affect cognitive and memory damage, serious mental illness like oppression, mental illness. The evidence in the NIH studies and showed that cannabis was associated with increased risk of early onset psychosis disorders as well as suicidal thoughts and behaviors and teenagers. They also did a really intensive study that showed that kids who use cannabis at the age of 15 are four times more likely to develop schizophrenia. The younger the age at the initiation of the cannabis disorder. There's also a couple of really good studies that talk about violence in youth that use cannabis specifically to that I have stated here. There was a youth risk behavior study that showed that there was between 12 and 18-year-olds who showed that youth that use marijuana are three times more likely to be aggressive compared to alcohol. I know and I actually hypothesized in the study that people thought that it was going to be less likely with alcohol being seven times more likely and then the combination of both being six times more likely. And this Cambridge study that was a meta-analysis of 300,000 people showed that marijuana use at 18-years-old is associated with a nine-fold increase in violent behaviors. So next slide, please. So this is the kind of why behind it. So here's the science behind it. I'm sure a lot of people are aware of this but basically the concept of endoconabinoid system. So the endoconabinoid system is a system in our brain that really kind of helps as our brains develop. It does things like synaptic pruning. It helps with development of our white matter. It regulates many things in our bodies that are listed here, learning and memory, emotional processing, sleep, temperature control, pain, inflammation and immune responses and eating. We think that cannabis is the study show that cannabis is more harmful during the adolescence period because this is a developing part of our brain and so the endoconabinoid system is really what's doing the kind of sending messages and pruning and making sure that things are being that the myelin sheaths on the nerves and stuff are developing in the correct way and when you interrupt that with exogenous THC or cannabis you're actually downplaying or upregulating these receptors and you're changing the way that the brain is developing. Next slide, please. So they've done a lot of studies on what they do to prevent youth using because of what I just spoke to. So the things that have been really shown to be protective and really help youth decrease their use are pro-social opportunities such as community sports, youth programs and also community norms that discourage youth use. Things that are shown to be risk factors for youth development of cannabis use are widespread variability of density, more days and hours of marijuana sales, exposure to marijuana marketing, youth following marijuana businesses on social media and new marijuana products that attract youth. Next slide. That's it. So I have all the citations for the studies if you guys are interested. Thank you for your time tonight. Thank you. Good evening, Kristin O'Connor. I'm a nurse and I've worked with families and adolescents in Santa Cruz County and I worked with families and adolescents in Santa Cruz County until the brain is fully formed. What we're seeing in our County with adolescents and youth is that they are using marijuana and that is because of perception of risk and harm is not there and we know that from the monitoring the future studies. We've seen this in our County and because of that because of harms are not realize we have more and more adolescents are in our clinic specific health outcomes that we're treating are long related issues from students that we have they're vaping all day long and they're getting access to this by people who are dropping off vape pens at the school taking it into the bathroom they're sharing it they're passing it around on social media that this is there and we're treating them in our clinic with long and respiratory issues. School issues we are having to provide family therapy and it's not a battle for us as providers in this case. We're not going to be talking about the paramedicist cannabis syndrome which is paradox cold because a lot of times marijuana is very helpful for not to but it can cause very acute violent not to vomiting diarrhea with we've treated adolescents and sent them to the urgent care. And it's been a very upsetting experience. And finally I'd like to say that there is an increased risk of motor vehicle accident after use marijuana and you do not perceive it as a risk. And that's what we've been dealing with with our adolescent kids and it was when we're younger we never had to send our friends and schoolmates to the air with a psychosis which we've had to do in our county so signage around dispensaries has been shown to increase use for young adults and that's our concern about having dispensary close to 2 schools in our county. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other. Hi my name is sage I'm and I'm an intern I train them to do this work. I want to repeat that I don't think any of us don't want to see this dispensary exist it's just location location location so I have a son at Santa Cruz high school and he fills me into and there is lots of legal weed in the school there's lots of cartridges it's not hard for them to get I have seen the sites for the fake IDs it's all there it's very easy for them. We have been treating kids for depression and anxiety it is gone through the roof we people can't find therapists I don't know if any of you have had this experience but I'm fielding calls every day from parents desperate to find treatment and they can't my counselors we take Medi-Cal and we are full we are busy and what we find is that the youth that are using which you know some of them are just partying there's like a there's two different groups there's like the kids that are partying but there are the kids that are using several times a day every day and what happens is they're medicating their anxiety they're medicating their depression that means we can't treat them we can't treat depression if you're medicated for it but you depend on that medication because that medication isn't actually treating the problem it is hiding the problem and when you're high you can't have access to your emotional states you can't have insight so you're not the treatment isn't effective so it's really been a huge problem for us so we operate in a harm reduction approach and we find this to be the most effective thing we don't tell kids you have to stop we don't tell them what to do we say what are you struggling with we're struggling with I have no friends left I hide in my room and I smoke all day I stopped going to school and I'm fighting with my parents all of this is important information and it's about kids and weed I want to say as a parent that for me putting this dispensary in this location whether it's 600 or 700 square feet away from the school it just makes no sense people laugh before about normalizing but that's exactly what's happening and I think we're doing an experiment we legalized weed and we're doing an experiment on our kids and we're finding the results so normalizing is great because it is normal for adults but is it normal for the 13 year old who became psychotic in my office it's not right there's too much it's too much it's too close thank you thank you with it other speakers for the school district I'm Claudia Bestel I'm president of Santa Cruz City Schools Board and I just want to start by saying that I have no problem with marijuana use by either medical or recreational by adults and no problem with the hook outlet and their dispensaries in Capitola and South County having on in such close proximity to Santa Cruz high school is a problem as a board member I take responsibility for providing a safe environment for our students very seriously our board passed a resolution last month that recognizes the dangers of marijuana for youth and identifies that a buffer around our schools would help support that safe environment we would like to align with the Monterey public risk matrix and which was developed by the public health institute to create that safe zone we ask that city leaders also make decisions to prioritize the health and well-being of our youth thank you I want to thank you for your time and I just want to close with you. You know we've legalized marijuana and there's lots of good reasons that we've done that but we need to also prioritize the health and safety of the children and youth in our community because we're the only ones that can do that and we can make different decisions locally than the state ordinances and just like the speakers before me over the next couple decades about the impact doctors are seeing our students in their emergency rooms and that's what kids need to be in school and learning and growing not in our emergency rooms not experiencing mental health challenges there are so many and I'm not saying that not having this I'm not going to saying that not having this dispensary here is going to eliminate the problem it's and if this amplifies the problems because of ease of access it's a 4 minute walk from the main campus the main part of campus it's a block and a half from the perimeter of campus and it's super easy for kids to get there and get back to school on a break. So thank you for considering our concerns. Thank you for your presentation. Thank you. At this time I'll ask if any commissioners would like to ask questions of the school district see none we'd like to invite the applicant to make their presentation. Hello and welcome. Thank you for your time. Valerie was requesting we have a member from WAM that wanted to speak in public comment it's kind of struggling if they could go before my presentation we greatly appreciate it. I'm Valerie and this is my autistic son. He developed seizures grand mal seizures a few years ago. He has a Stanford neurologist he's had many many tests sedation MRI even EEG's all kinds of tests nothing has helped until I thankfully met Valerie Correll and her special neuro blend of CBD THC which she developed to help her own seizures has been very helpful to my son's seizures I don't know what I would have done without her I'm I really have PTSD from when he had his first seizure and he stopped breathing terrible convulsions so any reduction in his seizures is just a godsend he has oral inversions so it's impossible to give him pharmaceutical and I've explored every option they just don't make any kind of anti-seizure patches that kind of stuff but I'm able to give him the CBD THC oil on little cubes of Starbucks brownies which he likes and so that's the only way and his seizures are now only once every few months so it's been really great I've been pretty stressed out with when I'm losing their office space and worrying about what I'm going to do if I can't get that medicine for my son and yeah they've just been wonderful I don't know if you know their history but Valerie Corral is the reason why we have the first Prop 215 medical marijuana her compassionate dispensary is the first in the country since 1993 and they never ask for any money and it's by donation only if you can no one's denied and I just can't say enough how important it is to have us have easy access to this much needed medicine thank you very much for sharing tonight thank you for coming at this time I'm going to ask everybody in the chambers to please remember that this is a public meeting for many people it's the first time they've ever spoken it is much more stressful to do it in the chambers that is full of whether you're supporting or opposing so I'm going to ask welcome everybody and welcome your thoughts but please refrain from making comments while people are speaking and respect their bravery for coming up to the microphone thank you very much for coming tonight can I add 60 seconds actually no for your time do you mind going to the first slide hello everybody thank you for having me my name is Bryce Beriesa I am co-founder of the Hook Outlet we have applied for a dispensary in partnership with WAM at the former Emily's Bakery location at 1129 Mission Street when we embarked upon this journey a year ago I did not think we'd be going before the planning commission nor did I think we'd get the approval and diverse community response to cannabis and Santa Cruz so life is full of surprises and I'm happy to be on this journey with you so let's begin I have been involved in cannabis in the county for a number of years I was very active with the county of Santa Cruz ushering fourth regulations back in 2010 I actually am the first business to get a license in the unincorporated county of Santa Cruz I'm a co-founder, spreetail operator in the city of Watsonville as well as the city of Capitola when I say I, I mean my organization I am but one member of a great team I also had the privilege to be on the board of directors of the largest trade association in the state the California Cannabis Industry Association and I'm a founding member of the California Cannabis Manufacturers Association so I got to work very proactively and closely with state regulators during the transition to ALMA through Prop 64 what we have right now so I am a huge proponent that cannabis regulations and legalization make for a safer community and a more responsible business operators next slide please so the reason I opened my first dispensary in 2010 was actually inspired by WAM I'm a firm proponent in medical cannabis I believe that it is a viable alternative to pharmaceutical drugs and provides affordable relief where pharmaceuticals have felt many people in our healthcare system and getting exposed to WAM and being part of the cannabis community really gave me a deep appreciation for its impact on the wellness and well-being of people so when I opened my first dispensary my goal was to operate it at a break even and give away as much cannabis as I possibly could through my compassion program but the last three years before legalization my partner and I were able to give over $3 million of medical cannabis through our compassion program to members of the Santa Cruz community so having this partnership with WAM is a dream come true Compassionate access got decreased with the advent of Prop 64 what we used to be able to give away that wasn't taxed or had the extra burden and cost of regulations became increasingly expensive and cost-prohibitive overnight Compassionate access all but disappeared in 2018 and thankfully due to Valerie Carrell's hard work SB 34 was passed and that allowed for a legal mechanism that wasn't taxed for compassionate free cannabis to now be administered and given away in the legal system next slide please so the use of both medical and recreational cannabis is consistent with the will and the majority of citizens in Santa Cruz based on the voting records for ALMA also known as Prop 64 found that county-wide 70% of the nearly 128,000 votes tallied and supported equalization through this process we have also undergone extensive community engagement to inform and have a fully transparent process although there is a lot of voices of opposition here tonight I think it's also fair to say that we have had overwhelming community support both on social media as I'm sure you've been inundated with emails you're aware of that as well and I think that we have a rich and storied history of cannabis and medical cannabis in Santa Cruz and that is present in the community who very much still supports medical cannabis and supports both of our organizations and I think that also shows we've issued a petition of support about three days ago and as of a few hours ago we've already gotten over a thousand signatures in support of this project please refrain please refrain from any audible comment so we're not just dispensary our goal in the community has never been one of just transaction we have always aimed to give back and I think that this partnership with WAM exemplifies that this collaboration will ensure that a segment of all of ourselves goes towards providing free or sliding-scale cannabis to low-income patients suffering from severe medical conditions like cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis and epilepsy this is a continuation of the service that WAM has been providing in our community for over 30 years and as of last year we have partnered with WAM to provide free weekly medical cannabis to 77 WAM members at our tree house location securing this dispensary on the west side is pivotal to our goal of building that up to 200 members with pickup points at our facility in Watsonville on the west side where WAM has operated for a number of years and still has patients that need access to their medicine and also a tree house so there's significant economic and social contributions of our partnership as 100% locally owned business we are deeply vested in our community despite the challenges the legal cannabis industry has endured we've grown and increased our presence throughout the county we have done this by investing in our team and our mission our total compensation for employees ensures a livable wage we offer health benefits, retirement options extensive training we've aimed to work with and support other hyper local organizations doing good in our community we have partnered with dozens of artists artisans and non-profit organizations and we have raised tens of thousands of dollars directly supporting Santa Cruz county organizations and community members we do this through our events our food and resource drives are sowing the seeds for change round up for justice and other community partnerships aligning with Santa Cruz vision if you have the opportunity to read Ryan's comprehensive staff report you'll see that our project aligns with a lot of Santa Cruz's general plan which emphasizes support for local businesses, community health and sustainable practices we actually reach 17 objectives and policies under the Santa Cruz city general plan the proposed use is consistent with five appropriate uses within the mission street urban design plan and this project meets five of the area wide land use and redevelopment strategy plan objectives and policies for the west side zone of the city exceeding compliance you know as far as regulatory compliance goes we've operated legal cannabis retail in the county for over a decade and have never received a citation or a violation from any government agency for our operations but our effort is impeccable our partners Wham have a long history of collaboration and cooperation with local government their reputation and their history of operations in this county is also impeccable as pioneers in the regulated cannabis industry we have worked proactively and collaboratively with the government on regulations that promote transparency and align with the health and safety of our community we are a process driven organization that consistently updates and refines our processes and our operation policies to ensure compliance with the constantly changing rules and regulations facing our nascent industry so let's talk about our location I think a reason why so many of us are here tonight I think it's really important for the general public and for the planning commission to understand that strict zoning makes it incredibly difficult to find a compliant location in the city we searched for nearly half a year to secure our location at 1129 Mission Street we made offers on two other properties prior to securing this location given the lack of compliant inventory available we had to purchase Emily's bakery so we could obtain the lease it wasn't available for lease we actually had to buy the business so we could operate there we did this only after confirming that the site meant all zoning and setback requirements in addition we hired an independent land use consultant to assess the location's compliance and feasibility after we got that report we felt comfortable moving forward and offering to purchase the business one other thing about our location that I think is important is as you are assessing a site's feasibility one of the restrictions are is that it's not located in close proximity to other dispensaries so there's a buffer from around other dispensaries but it's also subjective as to how many dispensaries are in a given area this is the only zone on the map that is as far away from any other dispensary in the city as it possibly can be so if we were to locate in Harvey West we'd be close to Canakruz if we were on the River Street corridor or Ocean Street we'd be close to Reefside and kind people same thing moving further down the west side we'd be close to Threebro so we strategically picked this location based off the very limited options that we have the other thing that I do just want to highlight is even though there are options available albeit a few of them in the zoning map federal banking restrictions prohibit any landlord that does not own their property outright from leasing to a commercial cannabis business so while there might be 50 available parcels we can only rent with landlords that are approved of our use and do not have a bank loan they must own the property outright this further limits and restricts our ability to find a compliant location in the city education and community initiatives Valley Corral and I have been actively evolved in community organizations that aim to promote the health and well-being of county residents particularly our youth we have participated with community prevention partners to inform and shape public policy that promotes the public good we have participated in United Ways to lock it up campaign which aims to educate adults on the risk of securing cannabis and other substances in the home away from children and pets since 2018 provided lock boxes at cost at all of my dispensaries to our patients to securely lock up pharmaceuticals and cannabis products in the home we have worked with the county on obtaining grants for the poly substance impaired driving campaign which secured a $500,000 grant to the Office of Traffic Safety and disseminated information to all of our patrons to inform them on the hazards of combining pharmaceutical drugs, alcohol and cannabis while driving we have deployed educational resources and social immediate initiatives aimed at spreading awareness on safe cannabis use harm reduction resources on providing resources on county mental health and addiction resources and providing information supporting parents on how to address our youth substance we have done this for years long before we have ever put in this application because it is part of our core values and our commitment to being a good steward of the community proactively addressing the school board concerns with informed solutions we are first notified of the concern back in September we reached out to Superintendent Monroe and we're able to have a meeting with the senior school staff we left that meeting understanding of some of their concerns and we made some changes to our initial design some of the positive solutions that came out of that meeting I left it and amended our exterior design to ensure that no transactions or cannabis products are viewable from any public right of way our initial design had a glass facade which may have allowed people walking by to see cannabis products on the inside as is consistent at dispensaries and kind people we have changed that we resubmitted our proposed signage plan and decreased the proposed exterior signage to one singular monument sign we did have originally signage plan to be on the building the proposed signage plan now has no cannabis signs on the building we will not advertise our brand partners there will be nothing to identify that it is a dispensary on the building with the exception as you can see in the rendering here we will go sign and one green cross given that there is a issue with use substance use in the schools we don't deny that it's a problem we asked for to work with the school to revamp some material that we had worked with community prevention partners and I had worked with other cannabis organizations back in 2018 around harm reduction resources for how parents can talk to youth resources for youth substance and mental health services in the community as a direct result of that meeting we launched safecannabis.net which lives on our website as an educational repository for resources for the community furthermore given the concerns of high school excuse me given the concerns of school staff they mentioned they were worried that an 18 year old with a medical card would be able to come in and purchase product and disseminate it on campus so I had voluntarily recommended to staff that condition of approval be that we do not transact cannabis to anyone under the age of 19 we would be the only dispensary out of 16 operating in the county that had this provision I do also think it's important to note that for the three dispensaries that I currently have since 2018 only the content of our customers that have come through our doors have been between the ages of 18 and 20 with a valid medical card it is a very small percentage of the total sales and transactions that we do as a legal regulated organization in the county you heard a lot of educators and concerned members of our community you talk about issues with substance use and use in the schools we are firmly opposed to use substance use we've proactively worked to educate against it and ensure that our operations do not provide a negative impact on the youth and that we do everything we possibly can to ensure that our products are not getting in their hands and I think that it's really important to look at the data and so in letters that you've gotten and in pills that you've gotten you've talked about the Healthy Kids Survey and that use is going up and I think that it's important to look at that next slide please and actually look at the trends and look at what has happened since legalization so according to the Santa Cruz Healthy Kids Survey from 2015 to 2018 use was actually flat what you can see across the board whether it's grade 7, 8, 9 or non-traditional schools but beginning with legalization in 2018 when we added two more dispensaries to the county and we put them in much more visible areas there is a steep decrease in use substance use so this current one is current marijuana use one or more days in the past 30 days next slide please can you guys see that gap in the middle? is it just a mist here? I don't see a gap in the middle go back I couldn't go ahead so for countywide we only have data up to 2021 no problem so very drunk or high 7 or more times lifetime results as you can see beginning in 2018 there was also a steep decline which coincides with legalization next slide lifetime alcohol and drug use on school property once again we see a steep decline beginning in 2018 which coincides with cannabis legalization please go to the next slide so we actually went and pulled data particularly for Santa Cruz high school because we didn't have recent data countywide and so once again you can see that with the exception of current use in the last 30 days which went up nominally but is still 11% less than in 2018 when legalization occurred it also coincides with a decrease in student use so while there is still an issue on campus there is a very compelling and fact-based argument based off the same research that the city schools have presented that cannabis legalization is not contributing to use substance use we could actually see that it has gone down across the board based off of legalization and the data here tonight please go to the next slide this is consistent what we have seen nationally the Center for Disease Control and Prevention Youth Risk Behavioral Survey revealed key findings about teen cannabis use in relation to the opening of legal dispensaries what the Centers for Disease Control found is there is a decline in teen cannabis use this study published last year found a consistent decrease in both current and lifetime cannabis use among high school students over the past decade the decline is notable since it occurred after the uptrend in usage from 2009 to 2013 before the opening of legal dispensaries this is consistent finding there are consistent findings across studies other studies including those funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and research conducted in states like Colorado and California also found no increase in youth cannabis use post-legalization in fact some of these studies indicate a decline or no significant change in adolescent cannabis use of teen cannabis use of teen cannabis use next slide one thing that was also brought up is the ease of use of obtaining fake IDs so I want to be really clear that there is not a single Iota of evidence that students or minors are using fake IDs at licensed dispensaries there has not been a single citation as confirmed by the Santa Cruz Police Department and is also confirmed by the County Cannabis Licensing Office obtaining a fake ID is different than actually gaining access to our facilities with a fake ID we have some of the most stringent checks and balances of any business in the state that requires identification what happens is that first there's a physical examination of IDs to confirm against physical characteristics we make sure that the picture matches we use black light illumination of IDs to check for UV validation markings we scan the front of the ID to ensure the line and font spacing can form to regulations we scan the back of the ID to ensure that the barcode data that gets scanned into our system is consistent with what's on the ID all of the above are required under a dedicated surveillance camera by state law when we scan these IDs by law we have to make sure that the ID is in place of the person that's submitting the ID and we have to retain that for 90 days youth and others with fake IDs avoid scanning and black like checks to evade ID capture, embarrassment and the threat of reporting because of the state ID check requirements youth presentment of fake IDs is not an issue we face in this industry shoulder tapping is also nonexistent due to the requirements of exterior camera and security surveillance we have to make sure that we have no evidence to support that youth are using fake IDs to gain access to legal cannabis I also wanted to outline studies highlight the effectiveness of ID policies at recreational cannabis outlets in California to prevent underage access to minors a research article from the journal of safety research in September of 2022 investigated the likelihood of underaged recreational outlets in California where recreational cannabis is legal in all cases pseudo underage patrons were required to show age identification to enter the licensed outlets the study concludes that licensed recreational outlets in California are effective in preventing underage customers from accessing cannabis this may be due to the strong incentives for outlet owners and managers to comply with the law to avoid legal consequences so another issue that was brought up is pardon me got to get caught up with my notes another issue that's brought up is that having a cannabis dispensary on mission street is going to normalize cannabis and that students and people walking by are going to be subjected to it so once again I want to reiterate that based off of the school's concerns we've amended our signage plan if you take a moment to look at what it will look like it will look like that is what you will see there is one green cross there will be no references to cannabis there will be no logos no flashing green lights no neon signs no guys going like this dancing around trying to attract youth we will have a very discrete and professional facility and I think that it's also a little bit of a stretch given the fact that we have a lot of information about it. It's not a fashion to music it's undeniably a part of American society and it is prevalent in all aspects of media for better or worse. Our business prioritizes discretion with just a single compliant monument sign and as I just said we will not advertise on our building and our design insures no transaction or products will be seen from any public right away. If you are in the facility you will not see what they do when they are in the facility. Aligning with established precedents. Sanacruz cannabis guidelines were formulated in 2010 and again updated in 2017. Receiving broad endorsement from residents, law enforcement, city planners, finance officials and the city council. The city's dispensaries have consistently demonstrated that the city's dispensaries are the best selling commercial route frequented by tourists and families heading to the board walk in the beach. It hosts 2 city dispensaries. Comparable in proximity to can occurs is distance from Kirby school in the county office of education mirrors opposed distance to Santa Cruz County High School. They are the exact same distance from Kirby school as we are from the city of San Francisco County. The city of San Francisco County has a brand ice cream a spot incredibly popular with minors and 3 bars is situated across from you centric spots like new leaf ice cream on fare and the green and green with Ray trail which hundreds of minors pass every single day. These establishments operate responsibly with no negative implications for the city of San Francisco County. The city of San Francisco County has a brand ice cream a spot incredibly popular with client operations in this community. We implore you to hold this accountable to the same standards and establish precedence offered to these responsible businesses. Our final appeal. Our partnership with and our proposed project exemplifies Santa Cruz dedication to health safety and sustainability in San Francisco County. We have a commitment to strict regulatory compliance. We assure the highest operating standards. This project is born from our deep love for the city. Our desire to see WAMP continue its mission to serve the chronic and terminally ill. And our belief in contributing many meaningful benefits to the community. We've embarked on this path chosen location and met every city criteria and we have a commitment to this project. We look forward to the next 10% of the rules and regulations that have been carefully crafted through the city's. Public process. We look forward to the continued collaboration with government law enforcement the community including the schools as we move forward on this project. We respectfully call upon the planning commission to acknowledge the robust community backing and the community's commitment to continue to progress together for the betterment Santa Cruz. And because I have an objective and there's something that I want in this process. I get that that mirrors my message and so I would also like to note that I attended a webinar last year from the California League of cities. For those of you that are familiar with cannabis regulation the League of cities is one of the two organizations that were the most vocally opposed to proposition 64. The reason that we have local control and why we're having this conversation in the first place is primarily due to compromises made with the League of cities and the police chiefs unions to allow local communities to determine how and who they would allow in their community as it relates to cannabis. And so in 2018 the League of cities was an adversary. Just 4 years into the pandemic there's some information from a webinar that they did to the greater community. And in that they stated that 91% of Americans believe in cannabis should be legal in some form according to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center. 2 thirds as of this survey, 2 thirds of cannabis sales in California take place in the illicit market according to a study conducted by the reason foundation. California cannabis regulations ensure products are used for consumer's of age and prevent underage youth from purchasing their products. 100% of ideas are checked at dispensaries to avoid selling to youth. States that have legalized medical and or adult use saw a decrease in the likelihood of underage cannabis use. Authorizing commercial cannabis businesses has been shown to reduce neighborhood crime, increase property values, and spur economic development. This is what we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about this research based statements are based off a research from jama pediatrics the Journal of safety research the substance abuse initiative the Journal of adolescent health and the centers for disease control. Once again, I'm advocating that cannabis in our community that is regulated is held to a higher standards and it creates a sense of responsibility. I think the problem is there's a challenge to distinguish between the 3 markets of cannabis that are running parallel right now. We have the traditional market, which is the black market. We have a psychoactive hemp market and we have a highly regulated legal market. The legal market is not providing products to youth. We have every incentive to be responsible members of our community. And I really hope that you allow us to continue along our path and enact our partnership with Wham. And I thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr Barry. Yes, huh? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr Barry. Yes, huh? At this time, excuse me. Once again, I'm going to ask members of the public who are very welcome here to refrain from audible comments. This is the time for commission members to ask questions of the applicant. Does anybody have questions? Commissioner Kennedy. I appreciate all the good causes you're donating to the education for school for students. I think we're going to go up into more direct contribution of the nearby schools like $100,000 every year that might make a big impact for those schools. You know, like I'm going to kick those to be view. He's headed to Mission. Sure understood. So I think one thing that I missed in the slide when I talked about is the tax revenue that will generate. I had no there's no tax revenue. Yeah, so about 63,000 of our estimated tax revenue would be contributed to the city of Santa Cruz Children's Fund. I realize I'm piling on. Yeah, you open further than that just direct to the schools. Just like in general. Yeah, I will tell you that in general through our sewing the seeds program we partner with hyper local organizations every two months to raise money and that's what we do. Thank you. I acknowledge all that you already do. I just want to get a little more pointed with that. Yeah, absolutely. So I do also want to reiterate that we've reached out to both the PTA's of Mission Hill and Santa Cruz High School. I have asked parents that have written us that are concerned to organize community meetings and we would love and welcome a proactive approach to address our PTO budgets 35 grand a year. I have Bob teachers 3500 bucks. Just a thought. Any other questions from commissioners? Yes, Commissioner Paul Hamas. Thank you. Yeah, really quickly. Sorry, let me pull this up really quick. I think this actually might be more for Valerie. I'm sorry, was it Coral or Coral? Coral. I'm curious about the wham side of this. So what type of products do wham patients usually try to procure? Well, some procure flower but the most useful and most effective products that we offer for most seriously ill patients who fall into the category of access well actually nobody wham buys cannabis. So, primarily there are oils which are distilled products. There are extractions which are oils that are offered to patients who have cancers and other elements that are taken thoroughly. They don't taste great. Most kids really wouldn't want to take them. I should think we've never had that occur in 30 years. So, we're doing this work. We also offer topical and tinctures. So, it's very limited amount but among those there are several different specifically created cannabis products that our members have found to be useful for specific treatment with specificity any different type of ailments. So, it can be from cancer use which would be different from epileptic seizures and especially that with youth. They're not the same doses but every dose is individually prescribed or I can't say prescribed but offered and every person is different and unique. Yeah, and that was going to be my next question is I know that there's maximums that a particular patient can walk away with in any one particular visit say, what are the quantities normally that WAM patients are looking to carry away? Just off the top of your head, I don't need like figures. It obviously depends on what they're taking. They can pick up weekly but I think that the legal dose is a thousand milligrams for a medical marijuana patient with a cannabis card that's specifically from his or her physician or their physician. Right, right. But that's not the average amount that a person walks with. That's a maximum. Right, right. Okay, great, thank you. And then this is for Bryce does sorry, Mr. Berries. So, the hook has a capitol and Watsonville location and I guess I'm curious is do they offer delivery? We do not but we do have a drive through option at our tree house store. And does the are there Wow, you have a drive through. Okay, that's cool. That was going to be my next question is with the delivery or I'm sorry the drive through I thought the drive throughs were limited maybe that's just in the city. We're one of only three in the entire state due to state regulations. Okay, awesome. Sorry, I'm going down a wormhole here. Okay, great. Then that next question doesn't really matter. Okay, thank you. Any other questions that commissioners have? I have one more. Okay. So I live right by three bros.  There's winery smell. There's quite a strong smell by three rows quite a lot. I don't mind it myself but this would be a lot different because you're not growing marijuana there. Is that you have the option to start growing later just in terms of Yeah, no, not at all. Our entitlement specifically for retail we can't do any cultivation or manufacturing. All of our products are prepackaged and so there's not really a smell at dispensaries because there's not any open product to disseminate odors. And then you I saw you have a smell system in the ventilation already anyway on top of that. Okay, but in terms of like you know kind of like broadcasting I think that's important. Yeah, I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. We'll probably not be able to smell anything differently than they smell now with our operations. Okay. Commissioner McKelvie. Mr. Berry has a great presentation. I was very compelling. Thanks for your time. You've spoken about. You've said pretty definitively that there's a lot of questions about that but can you talk in any general terms about challenges you have run into. What you know there's a raft of conditions on this approval. You know whether it's people smoking on the premises or you know any the odor question anything can you talk a little bit about things that may have happened in your experience that you either expect or. Give you any concern. I don't mean a laundry list of every thing might have happened but some of the things are pretty important to the community in terms of just access. I don't really I'm not sure I understand the normalization. Question but. There are very significant concerns that people have about their own kids about other people's kids. So I would like to know whether you can kind of give a. A little summary of things that concern you that yeah you control things and might be concerned about okay yeah, I mean I can talk about to top of my head. So we've spent a lot of time in the last month working on a conflict training for all of our staff and management. And how to handle that. So we had an incident a traffic incident that happened outside of the dispensary that escalated into a parking lot with threats of physical violence and firearms that it had nothing to do with the operations of the dispensary but our manager was standing in between 2 individuals trying to deescalate a situation and it was incredibly stressful for us and it was with a veteran who is a member of the general public that it didn't involve us it involved someone we knew and so you know there was concerns that he was going to come back because he was upset and frustrated and you know so we spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to train our staff for the escalation measures we deal with the general public and a lot of people that we deal with use it as a medicine and some people are using it for post treatment. I say that they're a combination of pharmacist friends psychiatrist and and bud tenders right it's multifaceted the members of the community we have to do it so that's constantly a challenge trying to navigate that in a place of compassion. I was I was maybe I'm being too broad but. I'm being specific to your operation I know you're talking about those might be situations that are challenging or or incidents that might occur that are that are again they give you concern over you know being having everyone safe in the neighborhood and in your facility. You know I'm I'm never concerned about the safety or the impact of our operations and we have 3 dispensaries that have operated successfully without issue for years now. You know my first dispensary in 2010 treehouse opened in 2018 or capital to capital store open in 2020 and our Watsonville store opened in 2021. Given the robust security measures which I didn't get into that are required of we have arguably the safest businesses in the county we utilize a very high technology security system called for caught fire. We have a lot of suspicious activity. And immediately alerts us and when we're not open it goes to a human that does active monitoring if there's any motion or suspicious activity and they can alert the police department and management in real time. I get clips sent to my phone at night if people enter zones that aren't allowed for and I think that because there's a lot of security measures that are very aware when they come on our premises and our property that they're being monitored and the security measures we take and then you know we also have security staff at all times when we're open which I think provides a little bit more safety and you know awareness for people that are coming in coming in you know I think my our biggest challenges is we're getting extorted by every business that we have to have a partnership with that's not cannabis because they perceive that we have a lot more resources than we have. We are taxed at incredibly higher rates than other businesses and so you know my challenges are less about proximity and more about you know the failure of regulations and how we get treated as a business. Okay thank you very much and with that I'm going to open the public hearing. For starters would you indicate those in attendance by raising your hand whether you intend to speak tonight. Okay I've seen quite a few hands everyone is welcome and thank you so much for coming we really would like to hear your opinion. I'm going to offer everybody one minute at the microphone I want to ask that you sign in and if you're comfortable tell us who you are when you start and thank you very much were you going to I was supposed to just tag on to the end of Bryce's you know I'm really sorry this is not the time we've opened the public hearing. So you could come up as a member of the public stand in line with public comment. I thank you for your time. Yeah this is my first time at one of these things. My name is Stephen Walter I'm a general practitioner medical doctor in Santa Cruz here and I'm here first of all I want to acknowledge my colleagues who testified earlier I share the same concerns about youth use of cannabis I'm recovering heavy-duty cannabis user as a teenager and I don't think it really matters to me although I kind of survived it and got through medical school anyway. But what I want to say here is you know I know Valerie for over 15 some odd years I've been a cannabis doctor in this town until legalization basically but I just want to say Valerie Correll is a hero of mine I love her I have worked closely with her I can't think of another person in my life who shares the values around service and commitment to compassionate care I also work on a donation donation basis as a physician and we share that we have that kinship I've sent her all my serious patients I've sent her to Valerie and I think Valerie and what she's doing is an endangered species and we need to support her and honor her Thank you for your comments really appreciate it and thank you for your service the line is back here I'm sorry I was really sick I just really would like to say something I didn't you know the time for the applicants report is concluded and they already received some extra time to welcome your comments but please stand in line with everyone else I'm sorry it's just not fair I really really welcome your comments there's a lot have been gathering my name is Jared Brick I'm sorry there isn't an actual line I apologize to me it looks like there's a line going out of the room I'm gonna pass to her I have two children here that I've kept here for an hour and a half so I'm just gonna speak my one minute and take them home alright once again this is that meeting everybody's comments are welcome and yes please go ahead my name is Jared Brick I'm a local business owner of 7 years in Santa Cruz County I run a media company also a soccer coach I also have a son who goes to Mission Hill I'm much more concerned with alcohol being sold at every store anywhere in the county Safeway, the markets, the gas stations right in front of them he can open a fridge, he can touch it, he can see it much more concerned about that you could not have had a better cleaner business owner than Bryce who is a co-parent of Pacific Elementary School with my other children and so the concerns I hear are valid as a general concern but for local cannabis dispensaries you could not have a more accurate integrity transparent business than Mr. Barry Assa and the hook, thank you thank you very much for sharing your thoughts welcome thank you my name is Raimi Clark I was just gonna say my daughter in 2019 was diagnosed with a really rare deadly degenerative form of epilepsy, DNM-1 it's medically resistant and it is degenerative there was like no she had to share a tax yet she's nonverbal with multiple seizures all day long varying in different kinds usually turns into a Linox Gestalt syndrome there literally was no hope for her most kids with her syndrome die at age of 6 there's only 67 in the country worldwide I'm sorry with her diagnosis she was the first at Stanford ever to be diagnosed with this if it wasn't for life but she most likely would be not where she's at because she cannot process pharmaceuticals 15 minutes after we gave her their neuroblend she stopped shaking yeah so I'm just saying I have another dot 9 year old and without her my daughter would probably be thank you very much for sharing your thoughts and we are going up in line so if you intend to speak please do get in line please sign up please sign in before you speak everyone will have a chance please line up we do not call you from the list signing in really helps the clerk get your name right that's right you're in the okay proceed wait one second hang on alright everyone's now in line waiting to speak thank you very much thank you very much for coming thank you my name is Gavin Kogan I wanted to address there's obviously nobody in here that's in favor of youth access to cannabis that's obvious issue what I want to point out to you is I really encourage you not to fall for the bait of trying to litigate again this issue of whether or not access to cannabis for youth access to cannabis is something that needs to be revisited in this situation the 600 foot is already we've already vetted this issue out that 600 foot buffer is a result of countless meetings with public health officials, zoning officials law enforcement it's already been determined so I'm asking that you look at this as the law that is already informed by the issues that are presented to you today to mitigate those issues and the last thing I wanted to point out is given the fact that this applicant has followed the law to the T to deny that this stage would be grossly unfair the school board should address this issue not in this forum but rather change the law elsewhere thank you thank you for your comments evening my name is Wendy I'm a nurse practitioner I used to work at Cabrillo in student health care who's been through school and granddaughters who've been through all their whole life here now in college and I know for a fact that high schools that are not close to dispensaries have problems with the kids having access to THC whether there's a dispensary close by or not it's endemic and from what I understand as an educator and a healthcare provider they're mostly getting it from their friends and the family and black market and since we've had legalization it's made it harder for them to get the stuff that we're getting as adults and what it's done for me as an aging adult is really helped me with arthritis and I was never a person who went to marijuana for the high I wanted I wanted to feel better and I couldn't take NSAIDs after 2014 and marijuana has made a huge difference and we have a healing community here and we're not hip anymore kids see us going to the dispensary and think oh god it's for the old people thank you so much I'll condense my five minutes and Valerie Corralo condense my five minutes into a couple of seconds so I've actually been speaking here for 30 years so maybe some of you have heard it first of all I want to say if any parents here are funding their children to be able to shop at dispensaries that is an astonishment kids cannot afford dispensary prices I can't afford dispensary prices and there's something that's profoundly important for us to look at this is an endemic it's a social problem that we're faced with our children are anxious they are upset they are scared these problems must be addressed and our fears it's the same thing that we share these fears together that makes us allies more than enemies there's not anybody in here who isn't concerned about children and their well-being they're our future they're also our present we work with children and I've worked with children as young as three months who are still alive at 16 years old I'm going to grant you another minute I appreciate that thank you I want to say that our ability we've been moved twice and our landlords had to refinance we're done we're financially spent there's no more opportunity for us to serve our members and we have to stay functioning because there is no other way for people who are sick and dying people are financially marginalized to access this medicine and specifically the type of medicines that we provide which are unique in and of themselves and are dictated by the needs of our members so I ask you please implore you to look beyond the fear, a valid fear but not one that this dispensary will be contributing to and I thank you for your time and I thank you I know this is hard work and I appreciate it thank you so much thank you very much next speaker please welcome hello my name is Chuck Berg and I'm the landlord for Treehouse and I just want to say that Mike Beriesa is a gentleman keeps his word very responsible and he over exceeds expectations consistently thank you very much next speaker hi I'm Michelle Newman and as a former teacher I completely understand the schools are rife with this I know what the kids are doing we all know what the kids are doing and it's true that I don't have to go the dispensary and I've seen those things I know that they have the little the black light to prove the ID they're not going to get into this dispensary but what I want to speak to is this man is my next door neighbor and when they moved in they are the most amazing family I want to say what a wonderful father he is his kids are incredible he's completely engaged as a wonderful father when I watch his character I'm just going I wish all parents were as involved with their children and caring as much as he and his wife are and I just really want to say he's a very good businessman he's diligent and he really cares about the community and he doesn't smoke at home we don't have pot all around so thank you for your comments next speaker Paul Howard you all are great I'm all about I'm really trying to run a fair meeting and I think we have a line it has nothing to do with the list I'm the second person after Vell so whoever you spoke in the general I'm really sorry the meeting process is to stand in line please stand in line I was too after Vell the list has nothing to do with order we are not calling people off the list my apologies thank you very much for coming and we welcome your comments after you stand in line next speaker I think the line concept is a little blurry because the room is so full so to me it looks like we have a solid line out the back hi my name is Dr. Suzanne Lerner I'm a clinical psychologist for over 20 years in the community and also donate my time to help educate the public I care like all of you the school board and all the people here about our children and the tremendous strains they're under and the addictiveness that's been addressed I do want to say though that prohibition proximity has never been found in a very effective way to deal with substance abuse what we know is that trauma the adverse children's experience leads to greater emotional and physical problems they analyze a huge study and stress I think we need to do more not less I think this proximity issue while well-meaning and I sincerely support everyone who's come up here to speak today we need to have programs in schools to reduce stress deal with trauma and help kids learn communication skills where they know how to say yes and no under pressure those are the kind of things that help Dr. Lori Layden in Monterey County has a program at the middle school that's been tremendously effective in helping reduce stress emotional disorders and more pro-social activity to prevent that information thank you so much I'm Anna Paganelli I'm a psychotherapist I'm also a next door neighbor of Santa Cruz residential recovery you may have gotten in your email some information from me the concern I have is Santa Cruz residential recovery is within 600 feet of the Emily's property and I love weed more than I wish and I love the dispensaries I think they're the safest way to have weed be distributed I encourage them their use for people but the placement by Santa Cruz residential recovery it is already a difficult I love living next to them and they're a difficult neighbor and putting a dispensary that close is a little bit like having a bar right next to a sober living house excuse me please address the commission so I don't see how it fits within the regulations from the Santa Cruz marijuana sorry from the cannabis license and regulation site on the Santa Cruz website thank you thank you very much for your comments good evening my name is Casey O'Brien and I am the director of student services at Santa Cruz City Schools and I'm here this evening representing the administrators and managers association there's a large group of us that are assistant principals, principals directors, supervisors and coordinators for the school district and I assume you received our letter with our my members signing that letter and I'll say what other people have said that we do not have an issue with dispensaries but we have an issue with the proximity it's just a fact that if kids have that access and they have fake IDs they can get in there pretty easily at break or lunch and I can imagine a student standing getting a muffin at Emily's standing in the front of the line and having to move backwards while someone walks into and out of a dispensary that's going to normalize further what's already extremely normalized I've been an administrator for 21 years on the school site and I've seen a significant increase on campus I've had to carry a student out of the forest because they had greened out the proximity is just a big concern for us so please vote against this Thank you very much for your comments Good evening, my name is Deborah Feldstein and I am a parent of two students at Santa Cruz High School no one here disputes the value of medical usage or Mr. Barry Ace's integrity I'm a business person we are here because we are concerned about the safety of our youth and we are not here because of just fear I have worked with youth for the majority of my 30 year career I volunteer at the high school and I have a house in a yard full of high school students every weekend and I know what is happening and they do have medical cards my son's a senior I hear them talk about it I'm at a club that I supervise I'm with students they themselves have concerns they said this is ridiculous they said this is going to interfere with their learning they have fears who is the principal of the school has done study groups there are students who are members of the principal's advisory committee who have expressed their concern and so I ask you to take into consideration the safety of our youth within the law the 600 foot usage as Ana Paganelli just stated recovery center which is right next to the high school and within the 600 foot regulation thank you for your comments my name is Jeffrey Hickey I'm the owner of a restaurant in Aptos called Soul Salad soon to be a restaurant in the city of Santa Cruz I expect to be I think I have to have an administrative use hearing I think I'll probably be in front of this board during that process maybe in the next couple months not trying to conjoin the two issues however I hope that if a regulation says for me 600 feet or something that's very specific I hope that the planning commission can agree that if business uses a non-arbitrary provision to invest in the community of Santa Cruz obtain property develop plans for new development that said regulation is the rule the rule is actually the spirit of 800 feet or 600 feet my father-in-law has Lake Sage Parkinson's we get him medicinal cannabis from the hook outlet the hook outlet is good community member they support art music community center events and thank you thank you very much my name is Mark Paul Goodman thank you for having this hearing and giving the community opportunity to talk I've been a resident of Santa Cruz for 28 years I'm extremely active with community service I love this community my previous spouse was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer and her pain just continued to increase over the four years that it took from her to go from diagnosis to death to the point where even morphine could not help her unless she was completely semi-comatose we lived in Arizona at the time medical marijuana wasn't an option it wasn't legal we have that option now please don't take the opportunity for RAM and to be able to have this access for its patients for its people that it contributes to thank you I am Stephanie I work at the hook outlet I am also the single mother of a freshman student at Harbor High I too am concerned with keeping our youths off of drugs like alcohol and cannabis I personally use cannabis to cope with anxiety and insomnia I believe in cannabis as medicine and view it as a safer alternative to alcohol for parents I believe that I can prevent my son from using cannabis is to talk with him to educate him about the dangers of using it while his brain is still developing and to lay down clear rules and consequences for using I do know that the closest place my son can access cannabis is a home it's important to lock up your cannabis prescription medications wine, beer, alcohol in your home to prevent youth access lock it up, talk it up and finally a number of incidences of students being intoxicated with cannabis not a single one of them was traced back to a dispensary while two thirds of all cannabis stales occur on the black market thank you for listening thank you for your comments hi my name is Annette Wilson and I am a Santa Cruz High School parent I've been really impressed with the presentation from Mr. Barry Essa it sounds like he runs a really reputable business and obviously the WAM supporters are very passionate about the service that Valerie has provided and I very much respect all of that I'm not concerned that kids are going to be buying cannabis at the outlet what I'm concerned about is the proximity there is research that shows that when there are more outlets in proximity to young adults their monthly use increases and also if there's signage associated with it that their daily use goes up four to six times so that's I think just the principle of advertising if kids see stuff they're going to want it it's why tobacco isn't allowed to advertise around schools so I just hope the well-being of our kids are not secondary to the well-being of WAM, thank you thank you for your comments hello my name is Terry Sardinas one of the most significant contributions of WAM is the role in helping patients reduce their reliance on harmful pharmaceuticals as we all are too aware of the opioid epidemic has ravaged our community and Santa Cruz is no exception WAM offers a safe alternative to these addictive and potentially lethal medications providing patients with natural and effective option for pain management and symptom relief the real danger that the community are prescription pills and fentanyl not cannabis more over WAM places a strong emphasis on safety and compliance with community rules and regulations and they have implemented rigorous protocols to ensure the safety and security of their operations I have no doubt they would continue to uphold these standards of granted approval to open a dispensary unfortunately I understand there may be a position from some members of the community based on outdated stigmas and fears surrounding cannabis however I urge you to consider overwhelming evidence of WAM's positive impact and the numerous testimonials from patients whose lives have been transformed by their services by approving the establishment of a WAM dispensary the city council has an opportunity to prioritize the health and well-being of a respected organization that is deserving our community for nearly three decades thank you for your comments My name is Mindy White I'm a physician I prescribe medical well I'm totally pro-recreational use for adults I prescribe or recommend marijuana for patients for sleep PTSD anxiety all the time I think having a marijuana dispensary next to the high school is super dangerous there is an epidemic of anxiety and in our teenagers their brains are so still traumatized from the pandemic when they were not in school they do not know how to deal with these emotions marijuana is so available I'm not worried about them buying it at the dispensary but I am worried about them walking by that green sign every single day it's all around them the more they see it the more they're gonna be tempted that's suggestive advertising works and I am worried about them this Santa Cruz High and Mission Hill kids walk to and from school every day the problem thank you thank you for your comments welcome the sheriff says it's okay would you reset the timer please does this work? the sheriff says it's okay we have a duty to give the community and as far as they are concerned I am concerned about them as well and I think that's why raising the age is such an important thing I also feel that families need to be more having conversations about those specifically if they're used incorrectly it can burn the throat and you know they're not all gonna know that thank you how old were you when you first became aware of that? oh god I was 20 thank you for your comments hello folks my name is Mike I come to you as a father of three kids in the county ages 8, 10 and 12 I want to say that my kids going into middle school and high school my media concerns are how is the administration working towards the 504 plan that my son has that the elementary schools have not been able to help how are the schools working towards bullying and communication and creating kind compassionate members of the community just within schools aside from that I am concerned with hearty drugs I'm concerned with molly I'm concerned with fentanyl I'm concerned with cocaine I'm concerned with THCA hemps that are in stores for any 18 year old to buy that is my concerns cannabis is the least of my concerns and I hope that the school board realizes that education and empowering students is what's going to help people make up their own minds rather than be seduced or whatever it is that we're concerned with with cannabinoids thank you very much thank you for your comments I'm a professor of physics I'm not expert in any of these matters except I am an expert on data analysis and evidence I have to say I found her very contradictory stories about the evidence and the data on the youth trends and the effects of marijuana big red flags and fishy looking plots I thought it was also very fishy looking polished plots but if we did follow the evidence of the business proposal or the logic of it the dispensaries are not only neutral for our youth but they actually have positive benefits that we should open one on every street quarter around the schools so obviously there is a 600 foot default buffer for a reason it's a default because local authorities are authorized to increase or decrease that that's part of the matter here of what is appropriate for our area I'm also the father of two kids at Santa Cruz High School my daughter used to go to Emily's all the time at lunch where a big loss to lose one of the very few healthy eating establishments not to hear that there was going to be a cannabis dispensary here instead and I'd say I'll just close to say no one has presented what is the harm done what is the loss of access to the medical needs by not having this one versus the risk to the youth thank you thank you for your comments thank you thank you for hearing me this evening you're doing a really good job I know how hard it is I'm Emily Riley and I'm I guess I'm not the Emily anymore but I'm still Emily and I want to say with just 100% support for what Bryson and Valerie are planning to do at 1129 it's been weird for me seeing that a dress up there all night going wait a minute what? it's not me anymore but when Bryce first approached me he'd been a customer at the bakery since he was a little boy and he told me, started to talk to me about what he wanted to do there if he were in fact able to buy it and went through a lot of research and regulation and working with the landlord and finding out that he would indeed be able to do it before he ever offered to purchase from me and then when he told me that he was working with Valerie it just spoke to my heart I've known Valerie for 30 years worked with her as the mayor and when I was on the city council and I can't say any more positively how much in support I am of what they're trying to do there thanks thank you so much for coming I've worked with the mentally ill both children and adults I am a parent and grandparent and I've worked with children as a teacher and a substitute teacher I've had the occasion to read people's records and what I'm finding or what I have found in the past a lot of the behavior that's expressed in the children a lot of it and I'm a parent so I'm not blaming parents but sometimes we're not that skillful and quite a few different kinds of abuses or disrespect happens then it seems to me the kids try to self-medicate with alcohol with bullying and with marijuana when I first went they interviewed me asked me why I was there and told me which plants I would need talk about specificity thank you thank you for your comments hello my name is Richard Vale first thank you very much for your hard work and all that you do I think these issues I've learned a lot here I believe they are very important especially with children I don't believe anyone with the dispenser should be able to self-medicate any kind of drug for a child ever I known WAM since about 2007 Valerie knows of some injuries that I suffered on my ankle I do WAM CBD I got my hip replaced on Monday I hesitated to even like hint at this but there was an event in 2006 in Ben Lohman that she's not even aware of and the support that she's given me through the years has been pivotal for me to stand here right now and speak to you as a totally loving human being of all life and all people there was a very very dark period and she has no idea at all that's the kind of person that she is and she would visit people in the hospital when they're sick I help with the peer-to-peer with a lot of the people that cancer mothers with their children that had seizures it's amazing the work that she does but there's actually two issues there's the dispensary and WAM and the school and that's important distinction because I think we have a good dispensary and there is possibly a problem with the quality for someone who uses a false idea in a dispensary I'm going to ask you to conclude your comments that's very good thank you very much for your time thank you for coming congratulations on the hip hello everybody my name is Bailey and it is an absolute honor to be here standing here as the marketing director for the hook I have the privilege of working alongside such an amazing group of individuals our new wonderful esteemed partners of WAM holding up the legacy of Valerie Carell at the hook we pride ourselves on our squeaky clean track record for compliance ensuring that we operate within the legal and ethical guidelines is paramount to us when it comes to marketing we tread carefully to ensure our messages reach the right audience our website content is safeguarded behind a 21 and over age gate portal a testament to our dedication and communication in line with the department of cannabis controls regulations we adhere strictly to the guidelines to ensure that 71.6% of our audience is over the age of 21 when advertising our marketing efforts are intentional avoiding engagement with underage demographics our journey at the hook is about creating meaningful connections celebrating life and ensuring safety and compliance in everything we do thank you for your comments hi Pat Malo as born and raised in Santa Cruz I've had the pleasure of going through this regulatory process with a lot of you all over the last decade I've also had the pleasure and heartache really of being a WAM board member and member through the last decade and what really strikes me today is that you know Bryce Valerie myself and many other people in the room have been involved with youth prevention for going on a decade now with the CPP group that you know has been focused around these issues and data bait driven public health graphs like you saw on the thing and really what we found is you know legal dispensaries are not where children are getting medicine they're getting it at home for the most part and so there's really that's where the talk it up lock it up that's where the talk it up that's where the talk it up lock it up that's where the talk it up lock it up that's where the driven approach came from and second since we just have a minute is that I know this is going to get through and they're going to be able to open up but if some way they don't I'm counting on everyone in the room to put as much effort into finding WAM a new spot to be able to do their work as they did into doing what we've done tonight I need a WAM but I know people who need a WAM and thank you for your comments hi there my name is Fiona Pierce and I am a student at Santa Cruz High School and I don't agree with the dispensary location it's maybe a four three if you're walking fast walk during break so you could be there and back within the ten minute passing period I have in the realm of fake IDs I know several people that have admitted to me that they've obtained a medical card just because they wanted one and as a teenager myself I know that the location will be taken advantage of I know people I know my peers it's not going to be good I've also spoken to a few of my teachers and they share my sentiment dealing with the people who will be under the influence of cannabis during class is not something they want to do and frankly neither do I think it is my peers take advantage of this location I urge you to consider that thoroughly as you make your decision thank you thank you for your comments good evening my name is John Onam a trustee for the Santa Cruz City Schools I truly believe in the powerful work that Valerie has done and WAM is completing that is extremely important to our community I do agree that Bryce is a very good business that's conscientious however when nobody is addressed in this whole discussion is why it is so imperative that that cannabis dispensary be located so close to two schools and putting kids at risk for all the reasons that have been stated the statistics that have been used have not been stated correctly there's much evidence of the abuse of cannabis in schools and THC I would urge you to consider to amend the ordinance for how far away a cannabis dispensary can be from a school that's what's at issue thank you for your comments hello my name is Kyle Draquino and I am the founder of Treehouse and also the hook outlet with Bryce Bereasa in lieu of only a minute I will shorten what I had to say I ask you to consider the bigger picture here the opposition to our dispensary is rooted in the same old tired failed rhetoric of the drug, the war on drugs it's a narrative that has wrought untold damage to our communities of color, torn families apart and squandered countless resources in our communities by approving our dispensary you have the opportunity to turn the page on this shameful part of our history and embrace a more just and compassionate evidence-based approach to see our dispensary for what it truly is not a threat but a promise a promise to a safer community where medicine is accessible jobs are created in the harms of prohibition are healed the choice before you to me is clear you can cling to the fears of the past or you can step boldly into the future I know which I would choose and I trust you'll make the right choice as well thank you I'm Tatum, I live across the street from this dispensary I just want to bring to light some issues that we've had in the last 10 years that I've been there there's an alleyway right behind where I'm constantly kicking out students for smoking weed they trash it, it's not a great situation and it's just not the right place I've worked in the industry, I'm a full supporter of cannabis but this is not the location that it should be at my family's lived on the street for 80 years and it's just a shame what it's coming to thank you for your comments my name is Steve Sykes, I'm the father of a junior at Santa Cruz High and a sixth grader at Mission Hill Middle School and I want to thank those schools in the Santa Cruz City Schools District and the County Office of Education for their strong opposition to a potential marijuana dispensary at 1129 Mission Street this location is on the main corridor of Santa Cruz where hundreds of students walk, bike, skate on a daily basis to and from their schools and as previously mentioned today I ask you, the Planning Commission to join our educational institutions in taking the same oppositional stance to glamorizing marijuana use for our underage community I think our job as a community is to stand in the gap for our youth regardless of their gender, their race, their age and as I walk and drive through Santa Cruz it offers constant reminders to me the devastation that drug use leaves behind and so there are only victims in its wake all government and civic organizations should be ready to take up the cause of protecting the innocent and well-being of the youngest members of our community please deny this opportunity the dispensary, the opportunity to place their business and products in a location so close to our schools if you remember two words tonight I hope you remember location and advocacy thank you hello my name is Zac Von Worley I'm the Student Trustee for Santa Cruz High and I'm speaking just as a senior or at Santa Cruz High I would like to start by saying I'm a moderate on this subject and I did vote against this dispensary in our recent school board meeting because I do believe it will bring more cannabis into our schools which is not good but I will say and in saying that fake IDs do exist and they are usable at dispensaries and I've seen it firsthand but the issue of partner schools won't be curbed by undermining a legal business who took the required steps additionally Brian's offered a limit under 19 medical users access to the dispensary seems very realistic and effective in stopping high school users going to it I would like to encourage him to donate to our arts sectors at Santa Cruz City Schools thank you thank you for your comments I'm not the only one hello my name is Barack and I've worked with and for WAM throughout the years and there's been a mention of balancing of harms and I think that the patients who came up here today really speak to the possible harm of this location not opening up and it for those who don't know the background it feels very easy to say we'll just put it somewhere else but we saw the map and that map is actually an overrepresentation because it doesn't include the 600 feet from any other cannabis current cannabis location and so I really want to urge the council to balance the harms while respecting the concerns of the parents here thank you thank you for your comments hello my name is Josh and I'm here to support the hook outlet and I just wanted you guys to realize that we have like veterans in the back that are amazing veterans superheroes that are here right now and I just want to thank you guys for thinking and really like considering everything here I grew up around narcotics anonymous so that's kind of my background to kind of help keep the high schoolers out of trouble so I perform it like high school grad nights and that kind of thing but yeah I just hope you guys make the right choice I think that zoning was already like decided so I think we just need to kind of keep going with that and thank you guys for your time appreciate it thank you for your comments you certainly made you are great and I believe so I've never smoked and I never will what am I doing here I'm in the middle of everything and I think this gentleman and that gentleman hit on the answer you asked how much is there in the fund from the tax 800,000 I recommend it's a win-win-win let the dispensary be there use some of the fundage from the tax and cure all the problems that are a concern parents are worried about their kids going to the dispenser I know for a fact I've been to the dispensers with the people that I care for no kid is going to get by at lunchtime or recess or whatever buying from the dispensary I know that for a fact I've been in them it's not going to happen we heard about all the securities they have in place not going to happen thank you for your time tonight thank you very much for your comments are there any other speakers father of a middle schooler and a high schooler so Mary want to am I too close no no no so marijuana has had a tragic effect on my family and I don't want to go into the details but what I do want to say is that I think there's been a lot of focus on the fact that they're going to check IDs I think the problem actually is that the transitive sale of marijuana so for example there are lots of people in this town who will buy marijuana and resell it or buy marijuana products and so at the time I first learned about the hook was when I confiscated a product from this gentleman's store from my son so I know for a fact that dispensaries do introduce marijuana into the community and I know they say that there's no evidence so that happens but this goes against the lived experience of every single parent of a teenager in this town I also want to say that they've talked a lot about checking ID if the prospective dispensary owner has no plan for how they're going to prevent people from reselling drugs to other children effectively what they actually have is a plan to sell drugs to children so I would like to leave it that thank you for your comments is there anyone else who would like to address the commission this evening see none I'll close the public hearing at this time we generally take staff the opportunity to respond to any comments that were made that they think leave a hanging chat I was just going to mention I know in the past we've allowed the applicant to have a rebuttal if he wanted to I was going to do that next I don't have anything to say do you have anything to say okay alright and please go ahead we very typically ask the applicant if they would like to respond to any comments made through public comment and that's what we're doing right now okay thank you to every parent in the room I have the same concerns you do the things that keep me up at night the most are thinking about how technology, social media and substances are going to affect my kids as they grow up I am an ally in that whether you want me to open or not and if you want to have a conversation of how we can make our community safer whether you are for the suspensory or whether you are against it please come talk to me my door is open I have my email listed I'm all over social media lately trying to spread awareness about this project and just know that I'm here for you and we're in this together whether you believe in cannabis or not so I don't fault you for being here because as parents we're doing what we can to be the best that we can for our kids so as far as public comment goes this isn't a referendum on cannabis the decision being made isn't whether cannabis is appropriate or whether our kids should use it or not the decision being made tonight is based off of current established law zoning and guidelines as an entrepreneur in this community I made a commitment in good faith that if I abided by the city's laws I did what the city asked me and I followed the restrictions I would get an entitlement to operate I've invested all the financial money that I've earned and I have made since we have opened the hook into this project there is no other location for us we can't get a loan we don't have investors there's no special interest it's the two of us and Val and I didn't do this to make money I didn't do this to expand my empire I did it to support an organization that I love and that I owe everything to and every single person in this industry right here and her partner that founded WAM and so for me I'm fighting so hard because this is a legacy I want to help carry it on because it's important to me and I would have never chosen that location and when Kyle and I are pessimistic we look at things from worst case scenario as we're making decisions because we're constantly dealing with issues I never thought in a million years that we would have the community opposition that we have we wouldn't have chosen Emily's if we would have known that we would have the community we wouldn't have been participating in the community we can't turn back I'm sorry I understand you guys are concerned I can't turn back I don't have the resources and I will work with you and I will do everything I possibly can to minimize our impact and to do whatever we can to collaborate the school board didn't reach out to us to figure out how we can make this work in the best way possible if we're able to open and if we aren't I'm still a parent in the community so let's figure out how to make our community safer together thank you thank you for your final comments alright thank you very much to everybody for speaking and with that this matter will return to the commission we'll be deliberating until we're done five seconds tonight at some point though absolutely yeah we will be doing it before we leave tonight okay okay so with that we'll stop public intercourse and discuss up here as our bylaw state we will would anybody care to begin of course you can Commissioner Gordon has a question are you asking a question yeah I am asking a question of people that are here can I get a raise of hands of how many people participated in the zoning the original zoning conversation about the boundaries and the medical marijuana or marijuana dispensary locations anybody from the school board thank you okay okay I have one quick question is it a maximum of four in the city that will be established five okay how many now this will be the last one so I was here during that process one of the greatest things that I ever did serving up here was legalizing weed it was fantastic and seven years ago I had just had my boy now he's in second grade at Bayview so I would say that my perspective on this has not changed and it has evolved quite a lot but I just feel all sides of this my high school algebra teachers here good friend my kid soccer coach from two years ago the faces that I see the school board I work with a lot so I just go back to consistency and the balancing we did throughout that process Ryan can you put that map back up with the little green dots and everyone knows this map the reason we pick 600 feet is because if you go any further you will in fact be eliminating marijuana clubs from Santa Cruz that's why not a thousand feet or you know I'm just throwing out numbers or 450 or 200 like where's the line and we did this intentionally not just me as a community as a process because we felt it was important to make medicine available to people acknowledging that there's risk to kids and all that kind of stuff and this is the balance so I don't think we should adjust that boundary that's been set I think this project meets that like all uses there's going to be an impact and we mitigate those as best we can with conditions and my experience with the existing clubs as a consumer and just like a neighbor and cruising by them with my kids they seem fine to me so that's been my experience I want to look at that map one more time and if you put a hundred feet around three rows kind of people you know the other ones there's really nowhere left if you were to be a business owner and get so lucky as to like find one in that little green dot over there on the other side of town you're going to be close to another school our town is just so small that you're going to be close to a school wherever you go so though I have concern about the impacts I think that starts in the home just my opinion on legal weed doesn't matter these are the planning standards we've set out for a lot of work and I want to stick to them tonight and approve this project that's where I'm at with it thank you Commissioner Dan I appreciate Commissioner Kennedy's comments and I'd like to align myself with what you said I also am deeply have been deeply involved at the county in drafting the county's cannabis dispensary ordinance and cultivation ordinance and so I also remember when the city was drafting theirs in 2017 and this excuse me I have to put my glasses on I can't read what I've written and so I'm going by really what the code says heavily debated in public was iterated and this business has come in and is not only in conformance with the existing ordinance but he has exceeded those standards and I don't think that it's our role in government to move the goalpost after the fact I think that's bad government and I also looked at deeply at the findings because those are very important in making this decision the staff provided findings of denial and findings for approval and I read those deeply and thoroughly and honestly the findings for denial just simply are not credible and the findings for approval are very very strong and the reason for that is because this application is in full conformance with our ordinance so it's easy to make the findings when that's the case so I also will be supporting this application and I also want to say I'm a neighbor my daughter also went to Mission Hill in Santa Cruz High I live a stone's throw literally from the campus my garage also abuts the alley that came up I and so this is in my neighborhood this is my neck of the woods and I am going to be in support of this application thank you any other commissioners caring to make a comment commissioner pohamas thank you to the chair so I'm going to try to get through my laundry list of comments and hopefully I still have a job tomorrow okay so I just want to say first thank you to everybody that came out to give public comment on this issue I just wanted to say a few things you know as Mr. Berry has said this is not a referendum on cannabis but really quickly I'm just going to go over some thoughts that I wrote down the industry is a socially beneficial well regulated in some ways over regulated in my opinion and legitimate the employees are competent hard working upstanding ethical contributing members of the community and the applicant has made a good faith effort to address community concerns the WAM partnership is incredibly attractive they have a great record as responsible conscious community oriented merchants they've gone above and beyond to make this work and they also have a strong endorsement from John Leopold which is somebody that I deeply respect and full disclosure one of my best friends growing up is the CEO of Canada which is a nationally distributed product and other friends from high school cannabis capitalists so to speak and got in with legalization pretty early so I'm a little bit more familiar with this industry than maybe some others so a couple comments just on this I don't believe that cannabis dispensaries are selling to underage kids as a primary issue I think it's mostly community members that ar