The Elk Grove City Council tonight will consider whether to establish one of the most restrictive medical marijuana growing ordinances in Northern California, forbidding grower sales of the weed and requiring that the plant be grown only indoors.
The proposal was launched at a City Council meeting last September where some council members warned that there had been too much abuse by growers and wanton disregard for neighbors at cultivation sites.
The council will consider three separate approaches. All are similar in their restrictions. But they vary on a key issue of where the plants could be grown.
One version would allow medical marijuana to be cultivated only in a detached building behind a residence, where the grow area could be no more than 120 square-feet. A six-foot fence would surround the site. And the building would need approved ventilation and security systems. The council discussed this option favorably last September.
Another would limit growing to a 50-square-foot area inside the residence. The argument for this choice came from the city Planning Commission, which deemed that a properly ventilated outbuilding with added security would invite criminal activity, while an indoor operation could be more discreet.
The third option would allow medical marijuana users and their primary caregivers to choose to grow marijuana in the detached building, or inside the home, but not both.
Elk Grove is one of the latest cities in the region to tackle the issue, partly as the result of a spate of violence that has occurred at growing sites throughout the region.
Ordinances already have been approved in multiple cities, including Rancho Cordova, Rocklin, Chico and Corning.
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