Coachella Valley Church

Coachella Valley Church is an alleged San Jose marijuana dispensary that operates as a church. The entity was incorporated in the state of California in 2016 and is located at the same location as a previous dispensary, Amsterdam's Garden. The City of San Jose has a history of litigation against its operators and is currently seeking to end their operations.

The City of San Jose filed a complaint against the owners of Amsterdam's Garden marijuana dispensary in May 2015 for zoning violations and for not conforming to city regulations on marijuana dispensaries. After the dispensary was shut down, Coachella Church of Cannabis, later renamed Coachella Valley Church began operations at the same location with the same operators.

Around November, 2017, church leadership stated that they were not legally a marijuana dispensary under city regulations, and should be exempt from taxation, zoning and other regulations as a legitimate religious group under United States Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) of 2000. The city attorney of San Jose said "Whatever their followers want to smoke, that's not the issue. It's the distribution and sale coming from the dispensary". In 2017 the attorney said he would file an injunction to prevent cannabis sales on the church premises. By late December, 2017, the injunction had not yet been granted; a hearing for a preliminary injunction was set for late January, 2018.

Coachella Valley Church claims to be the first Rastafari-based registered church in the U.S. state of California. Coachella Valley Church is an Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church in San Jose that uses cannabis as a sacrament and is a monotheistic religion that believes in a single God—referred to as Jah.

Members of Coachella Valley Church of Cannabis are known as Coachellans, claim that the use of cannabis helps elevate people to a higher understanding of self, and closeness to Jah—who members believe partially resides within each individual. They ritually use cannabis, which they call "God's Holy Healing Sacrament" to deepen love and livity. Central is the realization that an energy or life-force, passed by Jah, exists within, and flows through all living things. The churchhouse on The Alameda, San Jose has an altar, pews and sacred images "like any other Christian house of worship".

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