While councilmember Pierluigi Oliverio endeavors to get Proposition 215 implemented here in San Jose by licensing, regulating and taxing medical marijuana dispensaries, there is some serious marijuana drama going down in South County. For those who haven’t been following the sticky situation in Gilroy: it’s been two months since the city council started battling to shut down Garlic Town’s one and only medical pot club.

The council’s efforts to uproot the Medileaf dispensary has been much publicized in the Gilroy Dispatch, so much so that it looks like it’s sparked the entrepreneurial aspirations of a handful of local pot aficionados. In fact, the city has reportedly received six new applications to open up medicinal cannabis dispensaries in town over the last few weeks. One person was even ready to fill out a business license, according to the Dispatch.

This weedy situation started last Nov. 9, when the unassuming little pot shop opened up on First Street, right next to a Togo’s. Gilroy officials declined to grant the dispensary a permit, so manager Javier Patterson, emboldened by state law, opened for business, sparking a controversy. Last Monday, the City Council decided they were so terrified of the devil weed that they even went so far as to pass on outright ban on new medical marijuana dispensaries on the city. Mayor Al Pinheiro and council members Cat Tucker, Bob Dillon and Dion Bracco voted for the ban, which goes into effect on Feb. 24. Councilmembers Craig Gartman, Perry Woodward and Peter Arellano (who is running for district one county supervisor, by the way) were the dissenting votes.