Fullerton Wants State to Help Fight Marijuana
Here in Fullerton, where our downtown is essentially wall-to-wall bars with hundreds of DUIs a year as a result, we don’t take alcoholism or drinking and driving very seriously.
Sure we hand out awards to the officers with the most DUI arrests but when it comes to the over-serving or other bad behaviors by bars we don’t just turn a blind eye, as a city we change the laws on the books to make it easier for those bad bars to operate. Hell, Jennifer Fitzgerald is so blind on the issue that she’s on record blaming “pre-gaming” in the parking structures for the problems.
You can get drunk and kill a 6yo in her front yard and Fullerton’s Staff and Council will yawn at the DUI culture they’ve created. That’s not fair – they won’t just yawn. They’ll actively spend the next year making the DUI factory in downtown worse.
But weed? Now that’s a problem that Fullerton is willing to tackle.
Fullerton City Manager Domer and Chief of Police Dunn want help from the State of California to crack down on “black market marijuana retailers” despite the city council steadfastly refusing to allow legal dispensaries to exist in the city.
My City Manager forwarded me an article from the OCR..
He’s curious how you were able to get the state to assist you. Any insight you can share would be greatly appreciated.
In 2016 the voters of CA approved Prop 64 for legal marijuana with 57% of the vote, even 52% of OC voters voted yes on Prop 64. Even Fullerton was pro-weed with a 51% Yes vote.
Despite the vote, the Fullerton City Council has refused to allow a single dispensary anywhere in Fullerton. They won’t zone any industrial or commercial areas for legal weed leaving sellers in non-compliance.
You can run an illegal venue at the airport, refuse to put in mandated fire sprinklers in the largest nightclub in downtown, run a bar without the legal permits and so much more and the city is more than happy to let you get away with it. But weed? Oh man, that’s a sin too far and a sin that might cut into the profit margins of the bustling bar and fight scene.
This is substantially no different than Measure W, where 60% of voters voted against the development of Coyote Hills and the council is going to do it anyways. Welcome to Fullerton where your vote counts as long as we like the way you vote.
I use cannabis for Medical reasons and I live in Fullerton. Why do they allow Dispensaries in Fullerton only to shut them down weeks later?
They don’t allow them, at all. They pop up illegally because there is no way to legally open them, and then they get shut down for being illegal.
Fix the roads first!
Fix the roads FIRST!!!
Agreed.
Dispensaries will bring in much needed tax revenues. Much more than that 1M boondoggle called the stairs to nowhere.
There are two MJ manufacturers (not dispensaries) that are fully licensed and permitted to legally grow cannabis in the City of La Habra. The two businesses started cultivating only 3 months ago.
Guess what? The city just received their first tax refund check in the amount of $400,000.
FULLERTON’S LAME AND ASS BACKWARDS.
Oh, poor Curious. You can’t get elected to anything in Fullerton unless you a spineless piece of excrement.
Privatize paramedics and restructure fire services like placentia did and save millions of dollars each year. That’s the first step, weed revenue and expanded weed businesses is the cherry on top. Imagine replacing some of the gin mills in DTF with cannabis coffee shops and how much of the nonsense and violence would end as a result.
That would mean real leadership who understood the value of cannabis
Leadership is not part of the Fullertons equation!
Would the nonsense and violence stop? Or, would we just be asking for a different kind of nonsense and different kind of problems? What kind of people would we be inviting into our city with legal dispensaries? We already have the drunks DTF brings in, the homeless, and drug dealers making our city look and feel like skid row. The high schools , specifically FUHS, already has a major drug problem amongst the students. Great that it would bring in revenue for the city… god knows we need money to fix our roads….but, at what cost to Fullerton and the community.
“but, at what cost to Fullerton and the community.”
The cost would be…greater tax revenue for the city, less resources cops have to use to shut down illegal stores allowing them to focus on real crime, funding for educ, funding for homeless services, an alternative to opiods, oh and jobs.
This is really simple. Just allow it in the city and watch tax revenue increase and jobs increase.
If the city actually puts the money received back into everything you listed…. and, the locations are in industrial areas of Fullerton that will have minimal impact on our city and community. Meaning the community already deals with and has had more than enough with the drunks, drug dealers, homeless in DTF and the highschools major, ongoing student drug problem. Increased tax revenue, job increase, money funded into other programs, new roads, etc. all sounds great if those are the actual benefit with ZERO negatives. The community is done with all the negatives of this city. And, more than done with the city / city officials not following through. Seems like it should all be ok and on the up and up… but, with the city / officials already being corrupt what’s to stop corruption and negatives with this too.
Not allowing a dispensary in only makes people buy it in other cities that then collect the tax revenue. By not you increase the black market demand and everything that comes with it. There are plenty of areas in Fullerton that could easily house a dispensary minimal impact to the area. Putting one in DTF is stupid, but one by the airport or industrial areas makes more sense than having it accessible by a bunch of drunks. Use the taxes to help pay for prevention, education, and updating our schools instead of proposing bonds and higher taxes. When people want something they’ll go get it. Cigarettes are $9 per pack in some places and they’re taxed like mad, but people still buy them. Zone appropriately, let them open up, enjoy the tax revenue, and quit crying.
The people have spoken and we voted for legalization so you can either reap the tax benefits or watch as other cities collect on it. Can’t put the genie back in the bottle.
legalized recreational drugs in Fullerton….No! Harbor & Elm belong to the residents! Whats next after legalized drugs? ARent things getting bad enough around the downtown. The city council is now calling on the Churches to solve the homeless problem. I wish they would also unite to defeat drunk & drug epidemic which threatens our city and youth.
Take the fear mongering elsewhere. Even the voters of Fullerton voted for legal weed. Welcome to Democracy. You all love it until it goes a way you don’t like.
Fear mongering? More like TRUTH. This city has a problem with the bars, drunks in DTF, fighting as a result of all the drinking, homeless throughout our city and in DTF, drug dealers, and a major drug problem within the high schools amongst the students. Add in all the corruption amongst city officials, FPD, and school administrators …..and, yes, we have major problems within our city. Nothing new though…. all things well documented on this site.
So you, obviously, don’t know anything about marijuana, it’s effects or the people who use it – fair enough. That’s pretty common. But If you actually want to help your city and not just bitch, look into it.
Nobody “loves” democracy any way it goes; it’s just the lessor of evils.
“legalized recreational drugs”
Are you talking about alcohol?
They must be.
The illegal pot shop has been declared a public nuisance but continues to operate. Why? Is the property owner willing to pay the $1,00/day fine because it still makes $10,00 a day? Has the City make a pact with the devil’s weed?
A nuisance to who?
Great Article! We definitely need to shine the light on the hypocrisy. DTF has become a danger zone & DUI factory for the city. It seems much more interested in negative reinforcement rather than be solution oriented on getting much needed $$$ for our roads & other vital infrastructure. I hope this can be the beginning of a new local movement!!