A group of medical marijuana advocates on Friday submitted more than
73,500 petition signatures to qualify a ballot measure that would allow
pot dispensaries to operate in Los Angeles under specific conditions.
The proposed ballot measure would allow storefront medical cannabis
collectives that are at least 500 to 1,000 feet from schools, parks,
libraries, child care centers and religious institutions. If approved,
the measure would also impose a business tax of $60 on every $1,000 of
marijuana sold at the dispensaries.
The initiative is backed by a group called Angelenos for Safe Access,
a coalition of medical marijuana collectives and patients. They hope to
get the measure on the May 21 citywide general election ballot. The
group needs 41,138 valid signatures to qualify.
"The city needs a sensible strategy for regulating marijuana that
won’t allow for the unregulated proliferation of dispensaries across the
city," said Steven Afriat, a registered lobbyist and spokesman for
Angelenos for Safe Access. "This initiative protects our neighborhoods,
puts bad operators out of business and raises millions of dollars
annually for the city’s General Fund.”
A separate group has submitted petition signatures for a medical
marijuana initiative that would allow a select group of slightly more
than 100 dispensaries that were in operation prior to Sept. 14, 2007,
when the city attempted to place a moratorium on new pot shops, to
reopen. The competing plan is backed by the Committee to Protect
Patients and Neighborhoods, comprised of the United Food and Commercial
Workers Local 770, the Greater Los Angeles Collective Alliance and
Americans for Safe Access-LA.
City officials have struggled for years to come up with a legal way
to limit the number of medical marijuana dispensaries; however, the city
has been stymied at every turn by lawsuits and conflicting court
opinions.
In July, the Los Angeles City Council opted to ban dispensaries until
ongoing court cases or revised state law provide clarity on how the
city can legally regulate dispensaries. A referendum that would have
overturned the ban qualified for the March ballot, and council members
repealed the ban in October, leaving dispensaries completely
unregulated.
The City Council is now studying a so-called "limited immunity” law
similar to the Committee to Protect Patients and Neighborhoods’ measure.
The plan aims to reduce the number of dispensaries to those that were
operating prior to the 2007 effort to halt the proliferation of pot
shops and to place tight restrictions on them.
