With the clock ticking down on the city’s already year-old moratorium on cannabis cultivation, the Sonoma City Council on Monday extended the ban another year, to again give city officials more time to develop a long-term policy around the newly legal narcotic.
It was the city’s third extension of the moratoriums–-a set of three temporary ordinances prohibiting marijuana grows in the city-–which was first placed by the Council on Nov. 7 of 2016 for 45 days, then renewed for an additional 10 months last December.
STATE BY STATE: California Cannabis News
The previous moratoriums were set to expire at midnight on Monday.
“These ordinances are to buy time,” said City Attorney Jeff Walter, who urged approval of the moratorium extensions in order to give the council more time to draft its own regulations on marijuana cultivation. “If the Council does nothing, we (would be) left with a scramble” to create an ordinance before state law regarding the sale of cannabis takes effect Jan. 2, when the state is expected to begin issuing business licenses for the dispensing of marijuana.
