Lauren Callahan/OaklandNorth

Staff and members from Harboside Health Center flank attorney James Anthony as he comments to the city council.

Updated version

After a marathon of public comments and debate, Oakland city council members voted Tuesday in favor of an unprecedented plan to start industrial-scale medical marijuana growing facilities in the city.

If adopted in a final vote next week, the ordinance would grant permits to four giant medical pot production facilities in industrial areas in a bold bid to place Oakland at the heart of the marijuana economy.

“You want to be the Silicon Valley of cannabis?” asked entrepreneur Jeff Wilcox, who wants to build a 7.4-acre marijuana production complex producing 21,000 pounds of pot annually. “If Oakland wants to do this, you’ve got to start, because other people are going to.”

The plan would make Oakland the first city to allow factory-style marijuana cultivation, ushering in a new era of mass-produced marijuana grown with the blessing of local officials.

After requesting a few tweaks—including plans to create another permitting process for smaller growers—the council voted 5 to 2 in support of the proposal.

The ordinance could generate hundreds of jobs and millions in taxes, according to proponents. But opponents called it unfair to the cannabis growers who have traditionally supplied medical marijuana to consumers.

“For the past several weeks [growers] have been coming to me terrified, with tears in their eyes,” said Steve DeAngelo, executive director of Harborside Health Center, the largest dispensary in the world. “They are real people, decent people with families to support.”

One of the biggest sticking points of the evening was a resolution to clarify that, aside from the four permitted facilities, other big growing operations wouldn’t be legal in the city. This point—and the prospect of a crackdown that accompanied it--sent a chill through the Council chambers, which were full of medical marijuana cultivators.

“Part of this item is a moratorium on other facilities and heavy-handed law enforcement,” said Councilwoman Nancy Nadel. “Is that going to start right after we set up these permits?”

“That would be the expectation,” replied Arturo Sanchez, who oversees medical marijuana regulations for the city.

This statement was met by boos and hisses from some in the crowd.

Oakland is already home to large warehouse marijuana growing operations. Because city voters passed Measure Z, a 2004 ballot measure making marijuana a low law enforcement priority, warehouses of a few hundred to tens of thousands of square feet have sprung up with the tacit approval of the city.

Under the proposal, these facilities, which are already bigger than other city rules allow, could be shut down if they don’t get a permit.

Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan soothed concerns about this by suggesting that the city hold off on policing growers. Mayoral candidate Kaplan, who wrote the proposal with Councilman Larry Reid, suggested that law enforcement should wait until the permitted industrial facilities launched in January of 2011.

By that time, she said, there would also be a secondary permitting process for growers smaller than the four factory outfits, which are not limited in scale or size by the city.

This mollified some concerns, but not all.

Councilwoman Jean Quan, who is also running for mayor, wanted to add labor and environmental considerations to the guidelines in selecting who would receive the permits.

Councilman Ignacio De La Fuente made a motion that the Council go forward on the proposal, with a few stipulations: that enforcement activities do not begin immediately, and that the Council discuss an additional permitting process for medium-sized growers in the fall. He did not include Quan’s suggestions.

De La Fuente, Desley Brooks, Rebecca Kaplan, Larry Reid and Pat Kernighan voted to pass the motion. Jane Brunner abstained, and Nadell and Quan voted against it.

The Council will hear revisit the ordinance and cast final votes on Tuesday, July 27.