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Compassion club must first become wheelchair accesible
By Hempology | August 22, 2007
San Francisco Chronicle, CA
20 Aug 2007
Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross
HISTORIC HIGH
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is moving to designate the city’s first pot club as a historic landmark.
Supervisor Bevan Dufty introduced a measure this past week to give the old Cannabis Buyers Club ( now the Compassionate Care Clinic ) at 194 Church St. a place in San Francisco history – right up there with the likes of Coit Tower, the Palace Hotel and City Hall.
The club, which is in Dufty’s District Eight, “in many ways was the birthplace of the medical marijuana movement in the city,” the supervisor said.
True – but the real play here is about getting out from under the city’s disability access rules.
The club is located on the second floor of a building with no elevator and therefore is inaccessible by wheelchair.
If the club wants to stay in business, it will need have an elevator installed, something the landlord doesn’t want to do.
If the club closes, the Castro and its large population of AIDS patients will be out one of the neighborhood’s two pot dispensaries.
But if the building is designated historic, then disability rules don’t apply and there’s no legal requirement for an elevator.
Problem solved.
Well, almost.
“It’s outrageous,” fumed Dufty colleague Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier, who herself is in a wheelchair.
“If they think the business should be held in such high esteem, then make it a museum or put a plaque up on the wall, but don’t put the rights of one group over the civil rights of another,” Alioto-Pier said.
“I’m sorry she feels that way,” Dufty said, “but this was a tough situation and this was the best approach I could figure out.”
Faced with choosing between these two politically correct factions – medical marijuana advocates and the disabled – the Board of Supervisors punted. It’s giving the club an extra six months to get its act together.
Meanwhile, the historic designation process continues.
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