The Planning Commission has voted unanimously in favor of SPARC, the medical cannabis dispensary (MCD) that's planning to set up shop in the Lower Haight, continuing with its plans to remodel the former Good Fellows storefront at 473 Haight St.

The decision came at the tail-end of a grueling meeting that kicked off at noon on Thursday, Aug. 4th, but didn't reach discretionary review of the project until around midnight. (Because of a technical issue, the video transcript of the hearing is not online, but if you wish, you can parse the caption notes here.) (Update: the video is now live—skip to 11:46 to watch the SPARC hearing.)

"We are proud to receive unanimous support from the Planning Commission on our dispensary remodel project," said SPARC public affairs manager Joel Freston. "We’re also extremely grateful to the over 50 supporters from the Lower Haight neighborhood who stayed late into the night to speak in favor of SPARC. Those who spoke in favor of SPARC outnumbered the opponents 4 to 1, and of those opponents, many were employees of the [discretionary review] requestor at Love Haight Computers."

Love Haight Computers owner Azam Khan, who filed the request for Planning to do a discretionary review of the project, described being frustrated by a byzantine process within the Planning Department and Department of Public Health (DPH). Khan says that opponents of SPARC felt "cheated" because the Planning Commission only considered SPARC's building permit, and not the MCD's presence on Haight as a whole. (Our previous story has more background.) 

"The 20 people who stayed all day until 1am (another 20-30 left early) spoke against marijuana and not the building permit, and therefore, the Planning Department approved the building permit," he said.

Khan went on to say that a group of dissenting merchants from the 400 block of Haight will go to the Board of Appeals to appeal both the building permit and the marijuana permit issued to SPARC by DPH, "because of errors from [the] Planning Department."