A ban on storefront pot dispensaries here won’t go into effect
Thursday after advocates for medical marijuana successfully petitioned
to block it, the latest skirmish in the battle over how local
governments around the nation should regulate pot businesses.
After years of failed attempts to
control the number of pot shops and their operations here, the Los
Angeles City Council unanimously passed an ordinance in late July that
made storefront dispensaries illegal by modifying language in the city’s
municipal code.
Last week, medical-marijuana advocates
submitted about 50,000 signatures to overturn the ban, nearly twice the
number needed, according to the Los Angeles City Clerk’s office. Once
the city clerk verifies the signatures, the council will have to decide
whether to repeal the ordinance or place the issue on the ballot next
year.
This city’s unsuccessful efforts to
regulate marijuana businesses have taken center stage in a statewide and
national debate. Even as the federal government steps up efforts to
crack down on dispensary sales of the drug, illegal under U.S. law, 17
states and the District of Columbia now allow marijuana use for
medicinal purposes, according to Americans for Safe Access, an advocacy
group.
An ASA spokesman said California was
the first state to popularize brick-and-mortar pot shops, typically
denoted with a leaf or cross symbol, and the nation’s largest state
still counts the most pot shops.
A 1996 voter-approved initiative allows
people with a doctor’s recommendation to grow and use marijuana for
medical reasons in California. According to an attorney for the city of
Los Angeles, there is no mention of dispensaries in that law.
"The state voter initiative envisioned a
kibbutz model," said Deputy City Attorney Bill Carter. "It’s morphed
into a Starbucks model."
Complicating the issue for California
cities is a tangle of competing lawsuits. Last year, the California
Court of Appeals ruled that the city of Long Beach, just south of Los
Angeles, couldn’t use a lottery system to limit the number of pot shops,
because controlling the distribution of medical marijuana violates
federal law. The state Supreme Court recently dismissed the case.
The state Supreme Court is expected to
take up other cases addressing the issue of whether municipalities can
ban pot shops, but not for several months.
Although many California municipalities
ban pot sales, about 50 jurisdictions allow sales, while regulating
things like the number of dispensaries, their locations and hours of
operation, according to Don Duncan, California director of ASA.
In 2007, when fewer than 200
dispensaries were operating in Los Angeles, city officials passed a
moratorium to block new ones from opening. But hundreds more opened
anyway, exploiting an exemption for dispensaries that could show they
faced "hardship."
There are currently about 1,000
dispensaries in the city, according to Councilman Paul Koretz, who
represents parts of the city’s west side.
On the same day the City Council passed
the ban, Mr. Koretz proposed that city attorneys prepare a separate
ordinance allowing dispensaries that were open before 2008 to remain in
business. Mr. Koretz said he hoped the new ordinance, once it proceeds
through a clearance process, would be approved by the City Council
before the ban comes up for a citywide vote.
For now, the proliferation continues.
In the east side neighborhood of Eagle Rock, about 15 dispensaries have
sprouted up recently, attracting customers from the nearby communities
of Pasadena and Glendale, where dispensaries are banned.
Michael Larsen, president of the Eagle
Rock Neighborhood Council, said he isn’t opposed to medicinal marijuana
but said the shops are a "nuisance" in the community. Loitering,
littering and reselling are serious problems around the dispensaries,
Mr. Larsen said.
"It’s easier to open a pot shop than a
yogurt shop in Eagle Rock," Mr. Larsen said. "They just do it and start
raking in the cash."
Annie Lam, a manager at Hyperion
Healing in the nearby neighborhood of Silver Lake, said a citywide ban
would be "harsh" for many of her shop’s clients who use marijuana to
curtail side effects from AIDS, cancer drugs and other conditions. State
law allows people with a prescription to grow their own cannabis, she
said, but for many that isn’t a viable option.
"They’re frustrated," she said. "Everyone still needs their medication."
