Pubdate: Wed, 31 Aug 2011 Source: Press-Enterprise (Riverside, CA) Copyright: 2011 The Press-Enterprise Company Contact: http://www.pe.com/localnews/opinion/letters_form.html Website: http://www.pe.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/830 Author: Gene Ghiotto, Staff Writer LAKE ELSINORE: CLOSED MEDICAL MARIJUANA OFFICE TO REOPEN The owner of a shuttered medical marijuana collective in Lake Elsinore says he will reopen the facility following an appeals court ruling that temporarily prevents the city from enforcing ordinances that ban such operations. "You don't open something like that overnight," Carlos Stahl, who operated R Side Medical in Lake Elsinore, said Tuesday. "We're working on it," Stahl said he is talking with rental property owners in Lake Elsinore, but no decision has been made on where the operation will be located. A spokesman for Lake Elsinore did not return a call. Earlier this month, the California Fourth District Court of Appeal in Riverside put on hold a Riverside County Superior Court order that allowed the city to enforce its ban on medical marijuana collectives. In the order, the justices said there is a question of whether a local public entity such as a city may prohibit medical marijuana dispensaries when they are permitted by state law and have not been shown, as a matter of evidence, to constitute a nuisance. The stay will remain in effect until the appeal is resolved. The order allows Stahl to reopen the collective, but states he must comply with code and safety regulations. "The bottom line is that they get to stay," said attorney Christopher M. Glew, who represented Stahl in the appeal. Stahl, though, is not ready to celebrate a victory. "All this is, is a stay," Stahl said. "It's not like we won the battle." Stahl has operated a collective in at least three storefronts in Lake Elsinore, the last on Casino Drive. At the last, sheriff's deputies and Lake Elsinore code enforcement officials raided the operation and seized marijuana, hashish and money and arrested three people. Stahl has contended he is entitled under state law to run a collective despite the ordinances that make them illegal in Lake Elsinore. Stahl filed the lawsuit in Riverside County Superior Court in May 2010 asking a judge to declare as unlawful city ordinances that bar the collectives and to issue an order barring the city from enforcing them. A month later, a judge denied Stahl's request, and issued an order upholding the city's right to ban the collectives. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.