BY ALLISON LEVITSKY
Daily Post Staff Writer
Marijuana businesses are already blossoming in San Jose, but in weed-happy Mountain View, city bureaucrats are tapping the brakes.
Mountain View was an outlier on the mid-Peninsula for its enthusiasm for commercial pot shops, which became legal statewide on Monday.
But the city has enacted a 45-day ban on all commercial cannabis activity and has made no promises to approve long-term marijuana regulations, allowing for pot business, until the end of 2018. In September, City Council voiced unanimous support for marijuana businesses other than commercial grow operations, which they reasoned wouldn’t make sense in a city with such expensive land.
On Dec. 5, council enacted a 45-day ban on all commercial cannabis activity, including deliveries.
At a public hearing on Jan. 16, city planning employees will bring forward a retroactive ordinance that would allow pot deliveries to Mountain View customers from licensed businesses outside the city, effective Jan. 1.
Council may opt to extend the ban past the 45-day mark on Jan. 16. But for now, all pot businesses, including deliveries from outside the city, are illegal. The city isn’t accepting applications for licenses from any pot businesses.
East Palo Alto, Burlingame, Menlo Park, Redwood City and San Carlos have all adopted similar temporary bans on pot businesses, but have left the door open for possible future pro-marijuana regulations.
Belmont, Palo Alto, San Mateo and Los Altos have all nixed pot business in town.
