Fresno County Leaders Discuss Marijuana Ordinance at Special Joint Meeting

Leaders from Fresno County’s 15 cities, including law enforcement officers, gathered under one roof Monday in a special joint meeting called by the Fresno County board of Supervisors to talk about some of the county’s most pressing issues.

Among the most pressing issues was illegal marijuana cultivation. 

Sheriff Margaret Mims gave the various leaders a report on the county’s zero-tolerance marijuana ordinance.

"Residents in Fresno County were very concerned. We’ve taken a stand, and as a result, violence has gone down," Mims said.

Mims said in 2012 and 2013 there was significant violence in the county related to marijuana cultivation.

So in 2014, the county took an aggressive measure with its ordinance.

Now, there’s a push to have uniformity in the way each Fresno County city approaches illegal marijuana cultivation.

"We have gotten the attention of people nationwide, and people call us wanting to know how they should form their ordinances," Mims said.

But advocates for the legalization of marijuana say approaching the marijuana problem isn’t simple.

Michael Green with the Fresno Cannabis Association acknowledges that Fresno County has a problem with large-scale marijuana cultivation, but he criticizes the ordinance as being too far reaching.

"They don’t talk to patients about small-scale cultivation, they don’t allow dispensaries anywhere that would serve people who can’t grow their own plants. So they have really taken a zero-tolerance, simple-minded approach to what is a very complex situation," Green said.

There hasn’t been a meeting like this in several years, said Debbie Poochigian, chair of the board of supervisors.     

She said the goal was to get leaders discussing issues that affect every person in the county.

"I think we just want to put them on the table and let people go back to their jurisdictions and have further discussions," Poochigian said.

Leaders are looking ahead to next year’s statewide elections, where a measure may appear on the ballot to legalize recreational marijuana, regulate and tax it.

Some of the other issues discussed in Monday’s meeting were sustainable groundwater management, land use and farmland preservation.