Photos: Santa Catalina Island to vote on marijuana dispensary

Boats dot the calm blue water surrounding the Casino on Catalina Island. Part of the proceeds from the pot shop would go to local schools.

City Councilman Joe Sampson favors the medical pot measure. “Money going to schools and medicine going to sick people---what’s wrong with that?”

A majority of the five-member Avalon City Council signed the petition for a ballot measure on the medical marijuana dispensary.

“Critics say I just want to open a dispensary there because it will attract some of the visitors flocking to the new museum,” Mark Malan says. “You know what? They’re right.”

The Avalon Medical Cannabis Facility Act of 2016 would impose an annual license tax of $10,000 per dispensary and direct 50% of that amount to Avalon Schools, a K-12 complex of 750 students operated by the Long Beach Unified School District.

Joe Sampson supports the medical pot initiative.