The Planning Commission has a pile of pending applications for new medical marijuana dispensaries, and the president of the commission, Christine Olague, is putting pressure on the Board of Supervisors to relax rules about where they can open in order to avoid "clustering." At the moment, because of the "green zones" that have been created where dispensaries can operate nowhere near schools or youth rec buildings, there's already a concentration of clubs in the western part of SoMa, and along Valencia near Market.

Says Olague in a memo to the Board, "An over-concentration of any land use can be of concern to the commission; clustering can threat to disrupt the balance of goods and services available in a particular area and can alter a neighborhood’s character." A pot advocate, however, says there's plenty more clustering of bars around town than there are pot clubs, and it shouldn't be an issue.

The city currently has 26 permitted pot clubs (or 29, depending on who you ask), and the commission has a dozen or so applications for new ones. Meanwhile in Oakland, the City Council recently voted to up their number of permitted clubs to 8, and may push that to 12.

[Examiner]