The Los Angeles City Council’s unanimous vote Tuesday to ban all pot dispensaries was met with a mixture of anger and support.
Medical marijuana activists erupted in jeers after the decision, and
police officers were called into the council chambers to quell them.
Some activists threatened to sue. Others vowed to draft a ballot
initiative to overturn the ban.
"We’re not going to make this easy for the city of Los Angeles,"
said Don Duncan, California director of Americans for Safe Access.
DISCUSS: L.A. ban on medical marijuana dispensaries
But the ban is supported by some neighborhood activists as well as
Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck, who criticized most pot shops in
the city as "for-profit businesses engaged in the sale of recreational
marijuana to healthy young adults."
Under the ban, all of the 762 dispensaries registered in the city
will be sent letters ordering them to shut down immediately. Those that
don’t comply may face legal action from the city.
The new ordinance allows patients and their caregivers to grow and
share marijuana in groups of three people or fewer. But activists
complain that few patients have the time or skills for that, with one
dispensary owner saying it costs at least $5,000 to grow the plant at
home.
Councilman Jose Huizar said the ban, which received a last-minute show of support from Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Beck on Tuesday, will help bring peace to neighborhoods that he says have been tormented by problem dispensaries.
"Relief is on its way," he said, noting that the ban would allow the
city to close shops without having to prove that they are violating
nuisance or land-use laws, as is the case now.
But the issue was clouded when the council also voted to instruct city
staff to draw up a separate ordinance that would allow dozens of pot
shops to remain open. Officials said that proposal, which would grant
immunity to shops that existed before a 2007 moratorium on new
dispensaries, could be back to the council for consideration in three
months.
Huizar voted against that motion, which he said might give the public "false hope" that the ban would not be enforced.
But Councilman Dennis Zine,
who voted for both the ban and the plan to allow some dispensaries to
stay open, suggested that police might not enforce the ban against the
city’s original pot shops while the new ordinance is being drawn up.
"The officers will be given that information and we will concentrate on the other locations initially," Zine said.
However, Councilman Paul Koretz, who proposed the ordinance to allow some shops to stay open, called Tuesday’s prohibition "a ban until otherwise noted."
How cities should regulate distribution of pot has been a gray area
since California voters passed a 1996 initiative legalizing medical
marijuana even though any sale of marijuana remains illegal under
federal law. Officials are looking to an upcoming ruling by the state
Supreme Court for clarity on whether cities can regulate and ban
dispensaries, but that may not come for another year.
Council members said that in the meantime, something had to be done to reduce the number of dispensaries, which outnumber Starbucks coffee shops in Los Angeles 2 to 1, according to Councilman Paul Krekorian.
Beck, who appeared before the council, said dispensaries can be hot
spots for crime, citing burglaries, armed robberies and killings.
But those who support dispensaries say the ban will simply drive distribution of marijuana underground.
That’s what Steven Lubell, an attorney who represents several of the
city’s original dispensaries, predicted. "Is it going to go away? No,"
he said. "It’s going to go to a darker side."
