Patients and volunteers tell supervisors Access of Love is a charitable collective, urge planning to stop enforcement

Public comment at the San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ meeting focused heavily on Access of Love, a community center that several speakers described as a charitable medical-cannabis collective and social-services provider. Multiple members, volunteers and allied nonprofit leaders told the board they had received a notice from the Planning Department suggesting further review or enforcement, and they urged supervisors to uphold the city’s sanctuary status for medical cannabis and to recognize the Health Department’s role.

Shona Gopnar — introduced in the chamber as the director of Access of Love — said a subsequent Planning Department visit found no registers, menus, or other retail operations and that Access of Love functions as a nonprofit collective offering meetings, meals, harm-reduction services, housing assistance and medicine distribution to qualifying members. Several longtime members and volunteers described the center’s women’s group, veterans support, food distribution and harm-reduction classes. Speakers said the center…