Pubdate: Wed, 25 Jul 2012
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2012 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Kate Linthicum

L.A. TO ORDER ALL POT SHOPS CLOSED

But City Council Also Discusses a Future Measure to Possibly Keep 
Pre-Moratorium Dispensaries Open.

In what could be a turning point in the city's seemingly unending 
battle to regulate the distribution of medical marijuana, the Los 
Angeles City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to ban all pot 
dispensaries, while also opening the door to possibly let some remain.

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.

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 aballot 
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.

The new ordinance will allow 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 last-minute 
support from Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and police Chief Charlie 
Beck, 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 shops 
in L.A. two to one, 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. In 
a letter to lawmakers, he said most pot shops are "for-profit 
businesses engaged in the sale of recreational marijuana to healthy 
young adults."

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," said. "It's going to go to a darker side."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom