By Wayne Washington
The Palm Beach Post
PALM BEACH, Fla. — The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office says it will continue to arrest those in possession of a small amount of pot, despite an ordinance the County Commission passed this week making possession a civil offense.
The new ordinance, passed on Tuesday and expected to take effect in unincorporated Palm Beach County by the end of the year, would make possession of 20 grams or less of pot a civil offense carrying a $100 fine or 10 hours of community service. Twenty grams is a little less than three-fourths of an ounce.
State law, however, continues to treat marijuana possession as a criminal offense, and which is to be used is at the discretion of the law enforcement officer as long as both civil and criminal charges are not applied for the same incident.
For now at least, the state law is the one that will count in the unincorporated county.
“The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office will continue to arrest offenders for marijuana possession, in accordance with Florida State Statute guide lines, until we can review the proposed PBC Marijuana Citation Ordinance,” sheriff’s spokeswoman Teri Barbera said in an email to The Palm Beach Post.
Despite questions from The Post last week, the Sheriff’s Office had declined to weigh in publicly as the debate over the ordinance played out. Barbera also did not respond to an email Thursday asking why the Sheriff’s Office did not weigh in publicly until after the ordinance was approved. That email also asked how long it will take the Sheriff’s Office to conduct its review of the new ordinance.
“I’m a little disappointed,” said County Commissioner Priscilla Taylor, who first suggested the reduced penalty. “It’s certainly his (Sheriff Ric Bradshaw’s) prerogative.”
Taylor said getting a criminal record for the minor offense of marijuana possession has limited the job and education prospects of too many people.
From Jan. 1 through Dec. 9, 1,431 people in Palm Beach County were charged with possession of less than 20 grams of marijuana. Sheriff’s deputies arrested 715 of those people.
Pot possession was not the initial cause of many of those arrests. Instead, the people were detained on suspicion of other offenses and were later charged with marijuana possession and other crimes.
The city of West Palm Beach as well as Miami-Dade and Broward counties recently passed ordinances reducing the penalty for possession of 20 grams or less of marijuana.
However, opponents of reducing the penalty for pot possession have argued that doing so is a step in the wrong direction.
Taylor said she believes the new ordinance gives people a second chance.
“I hope Bradshaw) will look at it and see it as we see it,” she said.
Copyright 2015 The Palm Beach Post