Pubdate: Tue, 16 Oct 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

POT SHOPS PROVOKE BITTER ELECTION

Dispensary backers, foes vie for control of Eagle Rock panel.

Tensions between neighborhood leaders fighting a surge in medical 
marijuana dispensaries and the industry's increasingly assertive 
supporters spilled into neighborhood politics over the weekend in a 
bitter contest for control of the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council.

The fight featured fliers that promised free medical marijuana to 
those who cast ballots, powerful labor union backing of 
pro-dispensary candidates and a flood of voters from outside the 
neighborhood. In the end, only two of the dispensary backers won 
spots on the council, which advises City Hall on local issues.

Eagle Rock has long been ground zero in the battle over dispensaries, 
with its city-sanctioned neighborhood council calling on authorities 
to do more to curb the proliferation of pot shops. The neighborhood 
council backed a ban on storefront cannabis shops championed by City 
Councilman Jose Huizar that was recently adopted and then repealed by 
city lawmakers. And it cheered a recent federal crackdown on several 
pot shops in the neighborhood.

This year, a slate of candidates opposing the neighborhood council's 
"closeminded anti-dispensary mind-set" was organized, candidate Tim 
Ryder, a dispensary supporter, wrote in a local newspaper.

Ryder's slate won the endorsement of the United Food and Commercial 
Workers union, which has organized workers at more than two dozen 
dispensaries across the city.

Earlier this month, the union, working with a group of dispensary 
owners and marijuana legalization activists, helped gather enough 
petition signatures to force the City Council to reverse Huizar's ban 
on dispensaries. The same coalition is working on a ballot measure 
that would allow the city's oldest dispensaries to remain open. A 
lead organizer of the effort, the union's Rigo Valdez, said 
dispensary supporters hope a citywide vote can be avoided by working 
with lawmakers to draft an ordinance preserving some medical pot shops.

The political focus over the weekend, however, was narrowly targeted 
at the Eagle Rock election. Last week, Valdez sent an email to 
supporters across the city urging them to participate in the vote. 
City rules allow anyone who does business in a neighborhood to cast a 
ballot as an "at-large stakeholder." Valdez urged supporters to "go 
into Eagle Rock and purchase gas, coffee, or whatever ... and keep a 
receipt as proof " of doing business in the neighborhood.

More 300 of the nearly 800 votes cast in Saturday's were from 
"at-large" voters, according to the city's tally of the votes. 
Michael Larsen, the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council president, said 
outsiders came from as far as Ventura County. "I kept seeing all 
these strange faces," said Larsen, who has been a leading opponent of 
dispensaries. He said he called neighbors and encouraged them to 
attend the afternoon vote to counter the influx of outsiders.

Candidate Mark Haskell Smith, who lost, defended the participation of 
outsiders concerned about access to medical marijuana. "Our 
neighborhood council was affecting their lives," he said.

Most disturbing to some neighborhood activists were fliers circulated 
before the vote that promoted pro-dispensary candidates and offered 
$40 of free medical marijuana to those who could show evidence of 
casting ballots.

Haskell-Smith, union organizers and workers at several established 
Eagle Rock dispensaries said they did not know who was responsible 
for the fliers.

Stephen Box, an independent election administrator for the city's 
agency that oversees neighborhood councils, said he had received a 
verbal complaint about the fliers. Any formal complaints about the 
vote filed through the city's website will be resolved within five 
days, he said. Huizar said his office is looking into the matter and 
will refer information to the appropriate agencies.

Allegations of inappropriate influence in neighborhood council 
elections have come up before. Neighbors complained that during a 
debate over expansion of the large Playa Vista development in 
Westchester several years ago, the developer dispatched construction 
workers to a neighborhood council election - and provided them with 
beer and chicken wings as a reward.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom