Council Votes to Close Marijuana Collective After Long Battle

Capping more than a year of neighbor complaints and frustrated city enforcement efforts, the Berkeley City Council voted Tuesday to declare a marijuana collective on Dwight Way in violation of city laws and to order it shut down.

The Council vote asks the City Manager to return on June 11 with a formal resolution declaring Greenleaf Wellness Group at 1515 Dwight Way a public nuisance and ordering "the use enjoined and terminated."

The Council's 8-to-1 vote agreed with city staff that Greenleaf was out of compliance with a number of provisions in the Berkeley Municipal Code, including failure to establish that the building was a legal residence and that the cannabis operation was "incidental" to the residential use, both of which are requirements for housing a cannabis collective.

The Council packet included an exhaustive 194-page report from City Manager Christine Daniel and Code Enforcement Supervisor Gregory Daniel detailing city inspection visits and multiple exchanges with the operator and the owner of the facility.

The report included complaints and testimony from neighbors, including a man who said his home around the corner from the collective was burned down after Greenleaf moved in and suffered two break-ins. Others complained of aggressive patrons of the establishment loitering on the street and intimidating residents. Some reported seeing what appeared to be sales of the cannibas by those who left the building. A collective is not permitted to sell pot to non-members.

The report also cites enthusiastic user reviews of Greenleaf on weedmaps.com.

The one-story commercial building was built in 1955 for use as a medical office and is owned by GELSO Investments V, LLC, according to the staff report.
 
GELSO and Greenleaf operator Ruben Salvatierra asserted that the building is leased to Salvatierra as his residence, but the city staff report says the building has never been legally classified a residence and cites evidence that Salvatierra does not live there.

Before the council vote, lawyers for Greenleaf argued that the facility "was primarily residential and that it was a well-run business and not a nuisance to the neighborhood," according to a Berkeleyside report on the council meeting.

One of the attorneys, James Anthony, also said that Berkeley laws on the difference between a cannabis collective and dispensary are plagued by unfair "confusion and vagueness," according to Berkeleyside.

On May 6, the California Supreme Court upheld the right of cities to ban marijuana dispensaries.

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