Medical Pot Discussion Likely Postponed Until December

Napa City Council will likely wait until early December to revisit or confirm their plans to repeal the city's medical marijuana ordinance.

City Manager Mike Parness said the discussion is not on the agenda for the next meeting Nov. 19. That means that it won't come up, at the earliest, until a public meeting likely in early December.

"The agenda for the first December meeting hasn't yet been established," Parness said Wednesday.

Parness made his comments after a 3 to 2 vote last Thursday by the Napa Planning Commission in favor of keeping the ordinance intact and not repealing it.

The city spent four years developing the ordinance, which would permit one city-regulated dispensary for medical marijuana to be established in Napa.

However, City Council members in August voted 4 to 1 to repeal it after concerns about the possibility of federal prosecution.

Parness said the repeal action was sent to the Planning Commission as a procedural matter because it would involve a zoning change.

But he said that the Commission's vote was a recommendation only and not binding in terms of what might be ultimately decided by the City Council.

"It had to come back to Council, either way," Parness said.