By Joshua Dillen

jdillen@bakercityherald.com

Local activists are vowing to fight Baker City’s recently approved ban on recreational and medical marijuana stores.

They believe the City Council’s approval of an ordinance prohibiting commercial sales of marijuana violates Oregon law.

Local medical marijuana patients Carol Free and Rod Shaw have spoken against the ban at several City Council meetings.

“All we want them to do is obey the law,” Shaw said. “It’s a double standard. We have to obey the law that our Legislature lays out. They’re not above the law.”

Free said she is adamantly opposed to the ordinance and she will fight it however she can.

“The ban is absolutely illegal, according to Measure 91 and the medical marijuana dispensary program,” she said.

Measure 91 is the law that Oregon voters approved last November legalizing recreational marijuana use by people 21 and older. The law takes effect July 1.

The Oregon Liquor Control Commission, which will issue permits for recreational marijuana stores, doesn’t expect any stores to open until the fall of 2016.

Medical marijuana dispensaries are legal now under Oregon law.

Portland lawyer Greg Kafoury cited Section 1(e) of Measure 91, which states one of the purposes of the Act is to “establish a comprehensive regulatory framework concerning marijuana under existing state law.”

“The phrase ‘comprehensive regulatory framework’ very strongly indicates that they are pre-empting the field and local agencies have no power whatsoever,” Kafoury said. “They’re just kidding themselves and posturing,” he said, referring to the Baker City Council’s passage of the ordinance.

Kafoury said pre-empting the field means that state law trumps any county or local jurisdiction’s regulations that are contrary to the state’s.

Free said she and her husband, Al, are exploring the possibility of opening a medical marijuana dispensary in Baker City.

It would be the first such business here.

Carol Free said that were the city to take action to prevent the couple from opening a dispensary through the state’s Medical Marijuana Dispensary program, they would take legal against the city.

Baker City Mayor Kim Mosier, who voted in favor of the ordinance banning marijuana sales, emphasized during the Council’s March 24 meeting that the ordinance doesn’t prevent people who have a medical marijuana card from using or growing marijuana as allowed by state law.

Nor will the city’s ordinance restrict recreational marijuana use when that becomes legal July 1.

“It’s not my concern about actual medical usage (of marijuana) that brings me to vote in favor of the ban on sales,” Mosier said. “It’s all of the other circumstances (and) all of the other consequences that come with sales that we’ve heard about (and) I’ve read about.

Noah Bishop, a lawyer with Oregon Marijuana Legal Services in Lake Oswego, explained how the legal process would work if the city found a business in violation of the new ordinance.

“You would need to be an aggrieved party,” Bishop said. “You can challenge it in state court because it conflicts with state law.”

See more in Monday’s issue of the Baker City Herald.