Yes, marijuana inns furrowed the burdened brows of County leadership last week: “Mendocino County Board of Supervisors Cannabis Workshop, Tuesday, May 2, 2017.” Er, what’s a marijuana inn? It’s a B&B but instead of ceramic figurines of Marie Antoinette and Safeway croissants you get Bob Marley and fatties. Good ones, primo bud & breakfast.
After hearing the term introducted Fort Bragg Supervisor Dan Gjerde, looking at a piece of paper as he stepped through the looking glass: “The Bud and Breakfast is not on this list. Where would that fall in this list? Would that fall under retail? Bed and breakfast?"
Senior Planner Mary Lynn Hunt: “Bud and breakfast to us is just bed and breakfast. What they are serving there — depending on what they are serving or what they are doing — I mean, what actually does that mean to us? We don’t have any definition of what a Bud and Breakfast is.”
Gjerde: “Is that an allowed use in rural communities zoning?”
Hunt: “Bed and breakfast? I'd have to look it up. I'm not sure.”
Supervisor Carre Brown: “And environmental health. If they are serving meals —? Do we do inspections? What is required?”
Environmental Health Director David Jensen: “If — There is a bed and breakfast permit issued by environmental health which allows them some limited food production. There's an inspection of the kitchen. And there are some equipment requirements. We do treat them, not as a full-blown food facility, but we recognize the fact that they are preparing food for paying guests. My concern about Bud and Breakfast is a long-term concern and that has to do with the difference between a Bud and Breakfast and an ad hoc dispensary. I would warn you to consider that very carefully. I'm not going to make that distinction. But it is there to be made.”
Brown: “So basically what you are saying is, somebody books a room and if it’s Bud and Breakfast (air quotes) they are expecting to buy, um, a product —” (Ms. Brown couldn’t bring herself to even say cannabis, much less marijuana, pot, bud…)
Jensen: “Yes. You are expecting a room and a prepared meal to start the morning. With a Bud and Breakfast, you are expecting — you are expecting some cannabis in exchange for the funds that you are providing the owner.” (Aka selling a controlled substance under federal law, aka drug dealer.)
Gjerde: “So the question is, are they renting a room by the night or by the hour?”
(Laughter in room)
Jensen: “That is one of the questions! But I just want you to be cautious about —”
Supervisor/Board Chair John McCowen: “I think Fort Bragg is more cosmopolitan than I thought.”
(Laughter)
Jensen: “We have a long history on the coast.”
Hunt: “Chair McCowen, if I could speak to Supervisor Gjerde’s question regarding the bed and breakfast— It is an allowed use in RC zoning with a major use permit that would allow that for bed and breakfast.”
McCowen: “I tend to think that things are complicated enough. I really think that bud and breakfast is something that people are already figuring out on their own. We kind of have enough to do right now. I think it's happening. I'm pretty sure it's happening. And will happen. The State is going to be slow to catch up. And maybe we will too. I don't know.”
The Supervisors also spent an hour talking about handicap access to dope gro greenhouses, this hard on the heels of the truly nuts discussion of "bud and breakfasts."
And you thought Tasting Rooms were becoming a problem?
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