[420 Girl]

SHASTA LAKE - A 45-day moratorium approved last month to stall the establishment of any new medical marijuana dispensaries here may be extended for another three months.

The City Council will be asked on Tuesday to extend the pot dispensary moratorium for an additional 90 days so it can study and consider zoning regulations to govern their operation. The number of dispensaries allowed in the city may also be limited to two or possibly more based on the city's population.

The staff thinks it might be able to craft the regulations for adoption some time during the 90 days, said Development Services Director Carla Thompson in a report to the council.

The time extension requires a four-fifths vote of the council, which imposed the moratorium on Sept. 1.

The vote was in reaction to two medical marijuana operations on Shasta Dam Boulevard that were approved by the city staff because there were no rules or regulations in place to govern or restrict them.

"With a lack of guidelines, it is feasible that several dispensaries could locate to existing buildings along Shasta Dam Boulevard," Thompson wrote in an earlier report.

"With an absence of adopted guidelines, and without the authority to impose conditions, it is possible that a proliferation of dispensaries could operate 24 hours per day, seven days per week," she wrote in that report.

Thompson has said the moratorium would allow time to write guidelines that could, among other rules, limit where dispensaries are located, designate hours of operation and impose other restrictions, such as their distances from schools and public parks.

City officials have stressed that they are not considering an outright ban on medical pot dispensaries.

The city's Planning Commission conducted a Sept. 17 public hearing on a draft ordinance establishing regulations and procedures for medical marijuana collectives and collaboratives and continued it to Oct. 15.

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