Los Angeles

MORE DEBATE ON POT ORDINANCE

The city's proposed medical marijuana ordinance, under construction
for more than two years, will be debated again Nov. 16 at a joint
hearing of two City Council committees.

Councilmen Ed Reyes and Greg Smith, chairmen of the planning and the
Public Safety committees, respectively, are hoping to resolve some of
key issues before the measure goes to the full council.

Some of the issues the council is still trying to decide: how to
ensure that medical marijuana is not being sold for profit in
violation of state law; whether to require dispensaries to provide
names of their patients and growers; and how far the stores should be
required to stay from schools and places where children gather.

The council has been under pressure to act quickly since a Los
Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled last month that the city's
moratorium on dispensaries was illegally extended, leaving L.A.
unable to act against the hundreds of dispensaries that opened in
violation of that ban.