Dunsmuir mayor proposes downtown pot garden

DUNSMUIR - The mayor of Dunsmuir wants to bring a large medical marijuana garden to the tiny Northern California city's historic business district.

Mayor Peter Arth, himself a medical marijuana patient, has asked the city council for a permit that would allow him to lease three commercial lots he owns to a cannabis collective that would erect greenhouses.

Arth says the prime location would help "bring medical cannabis out of the darkness of an underground market and into the legal light."

Council member Mario Rubino says the project raises security concerns even though it would be located across the street from a Siskiyou County sheriff's station. Rubino says the greenhouses would be "like putting $50,000 in an empty lot with a wooden fence around it."

The council is scheduled to hear public comments on the plan Thursday.

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Information from: Record Searchlight, http://redding.com