San Francisco Won't Permit 'Pot Luck' Medical Marijuana Food Festival
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) – Last month, San Francisco's first medical marijuana food festival made national headlines. Now, city officials said they will not allow a second one, and the organizer of the event accuses the city of intimidating cannabis clubs to discourage them from taking part.
With everything from a medical marijuana pancake breakfast to cookies and cakes infused with cannabis, the event called "Get Baked" was a smash hit. So organizers are planning a follow up, called "Pot Luck," on August 1st.
But Nancy Sarieh with the city's Department of Public Health said selling medical cannabis requires a dispensary permit, and San Francisco will not grant one, because the organizers don't qualify.
"We're trying to uphold the law and make sure that they are lawfully doing what they are doing and folks like this who are trying to come in and do this and have a pop up-type of event. It requires a lot more," Sarieh told KCBS. "And it's for their own good so that they are protected by the Department of Public Health, by the San Francisco P.D., and other agencies."
Event organizer Jared Stratton said the health department is intimidating the dispensaries who took part in Get Baked, into pulling out of Pot Luck. Stratton said he followed all the rules in June, and the same ones should apply now.
"We didn't just pull this out of the blue, we wouldn't have thrown the event if they didn't give us guidelines," Stratton said. "We followed those guidelines."
Stratton said he may move the August Pot Luck to another city, possibly Oakland.