[420 Girl]

Marijuana dispensaries aren’t welcome in Yountville, according to the Town Council’s unanimous decision Tuesday to adopt an ordinance banning the businesses within town limits.

Yountville Councilman Lewis Chilton said in an interview Wednesday that creating a clear ordinance was an important move — especially considering that dispensaries are illegal under federal law, legal under state law, and prosecuted at the county level.

“With that kind of a conflict . . . it made a lot of sense to proactively go ahead and establish our policy now so that everything is clear,” Chilton said.

He said allowing marijuana dispensaries would be the wrong decision for Yountville.

“As leaders in the community, I think it’s a real problem for our children to be giving the message to them that marijuana is a normal and acceptable choice for them to make, and that it can be a positive thing for them medically,” said Chilton, a father of two young children.

All the cities in the county are dealing with potential medical marijuana bans or regulations to allow clinics.

Napa is drafting a law to allow a single clinic in town, with strict regulations. St. Helena is also considering an ordinance regarding dispensaries.

Calistoga has taken steps toward banning dispensaries, but is waiting on the outcome of a legal dispute over a ban in Anaheim. American Canyon has put in place regulations barring businesses illegal under either state or federal law, which effectively bans marijuana dispensaries.

The issue came to light in Yountville last December, when an unidentified person contacted the town with questions about regulations governing pot dispensaries, Chilton said.

“When that occurred, I asked for our town staff to do the research on what regulatory authority we had as a jurisdiction to regulate that,” he said.

That set the wheels in motion for lawyers including Matt Gorman — a Santa Rosa-based attorney working for the town of Yountville — to draft an ordinance prohibiting the dispensaries in Yountville. The statute is effective one month after its adoption, the document states.

Town governments may “regulate or prohibit” dispensaries from setting up shop within town limits, according to a Yountville Town Council staff report Gorman co-wrote.

Chilton confirmed the dispensary ban is permanent and said a legal dispensary has never existed in Yountville.

As for Napa and St. Helena, he said, “It seems clear to me that those two jurisdictions have decided to allow them with . . . certain restrictions. We obviously took a very different approach.”

Nobody from the public spoke in favor of allowing pot dispensaries in Yountville at Tuesday’s council meeting, Chilton said.

Bob Tiernan, Yountville’s planning and building director, said the council’s decision “reflected and supported the benefits to public safety detailed in the staff report by prohibiting the establishment . . . of medical marijuana clinics.”

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