L.A. ACTS TO CAP POT STORES

A City Council Vote Allows 137 Marijuana Dispensaries to Remain, With
a Target of 70.

The Los Angeles City Council took several key steps Tuesday toward
completing an ordinance that would regulate the city's multiplying
medical marijuana dispensaries, voting to sharply limit the number
and location of stores.

The decisions, reached after hours of often heated debate, came more
than 4 1/2 years after the council first looked at the issue. At that
time, there were four known dispensaries in the city. Hundreds opened
while the city failed to enforce a moratorium on dispensaries and
pass an ordinance.

The council voted to allow 70 dispensaries. But it also decided to
allow those dispensaries that had registered with the city and are
still open in their original locations to continue to operate. The
city attorney's office put the number at 137. The cap would take
effect only if the number of dispensaries dropped to 70.

In a final bid to clamp down, the council also tightened the location
restrictions, deciding that dispensaries will not be allowed within
1,000 feet of schools, parks, libraries, residences or sites with
other so-called sensitive uses. Supporters of that restriction said
it was critical to protect neighborhoods, but opponents and
dispensary operators insisted that it would eliminate most locations
in Los Angeles, where commercial strips are often next to houses.

The council plans to vote today on the overall measure.

The debate has seen the council try to find a balance among medical
marijuana advocates who have demanded safe access to the drug,
homeowners who have protested the rapid expansion of dispensaries
into residential neighborhoods and prosecutors who have insisted that
collectives cannot sell marijuana and must grow it on-site.

Councilman Jose Huizar, who spearheaded the push for the cap and
other attempts to stiffen the proposed ordinance, said he believed
the city needed to start with the most restrictive approach. "If we
allow for permissiveness in this ordinance, people will take
advantage of it," he said.

Most council members appeared to agree, including Ed Reyes, who
oversaw the drawn-out drafting process and who had reduced the
allowable distance from schools and other such sites to 500 feet. He
reversed himself Tuesday.

"I really think we sent a strong message that we want to take our
city back," said Reyes, who intervened several times as the debate
strayed to urge his colleagues to finish the ordinance. "We have to
clean up a real big mess now."

L.A. has almost no control over its medical marijuana dispensaries.
An L.A. County Superior Court judge recently declared that the city's
moratorium on new outlets, adopted in 2007, was illegally extended
and could not be enforced. Dispensaries are still opening and have
clustered in neighborhoods such as Eagle Rock, Hollywood and Woodland
Hills, drawn by empty storefronts or by proximity to night life or
cities that do not allow pot dispensaries.

Michael Larsen, public safety director for the Eagle Rock
Neighborhood Council and one of the most vigilant neighborhood
activists, said he was pleased with the cap and the location
restrictions: "We see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I don't
expect any real change in the situation until late spring or summer,
realistically."

The only other city among the state's 10 largest to impose a cap is
Oakland, which has less than one-tenth the population of Los Angeles
and allows four dispensaries. Those operations have become extremely
successful, splitting about $20 million a year in sales. Berkeley,
with a population of 107,000, allows three shops; Palm Springs,
population 47,600, two; West Hollywood, population 37,000, four; and
Sebastopol, population 7,700, two.

Jane Usher, a special assistant city attorney, told the council that
she did not believe a lawsuit challenging a cap would be successful.
"If you can have an outright ban," she said, "then assuredly you can
have a cap."

Council members wrestled with whether to cap the number at 70, as
Huizar proposed, or 186, as Councilman Dennis Zine suggested. Zine
and several other council members argued that the city needed to
respect the dispensaries that had followed the city's requirements
and registered to operate under the moratorium.

Zine spoke strenuously against the proposed 70 limit. "I don't think
that is fair to those that opened up legally," he said. "I think that
we should hold true to those that followed the rule."

But Huizar noted that the 186 did nothing more than fill out
paperwork. "There's good ones, there's bad ones," he said, adding
that city officials had not vetted them.

He also maintained that 70 was all that the budget-strapped city
could oversee. "We don't have sufficient staff right now," he said.

Los Angeles Police Cmdr. Pat Gannon said the LAPD would probably set
up a separate inspection and audit unit to oversee dispensaries. He
estimated that a 14-employee team would be needed to watch 70
dispensaries and would cost about $1.3 million to operate. He said
the staff could be drawn from the narcotics unit, but added, "They
would not be working on criminal narcotics investigations that they
would normally be working on."

Under the proposed ordinance, those dispensaries allowed to remain in
business would have six months to comply with the new restrictions.
Many would probably have to relocate. City officials will draw up a
plan that would distribute them among the city's 35 community plan
areas by population to prevent over-concentration.

Yamileth Bolanos, a dispensary owner and president of the Greater Los
Angeles Collectives Alliance, was relieved. "We complied with
everything they asked us to at that time, so it's only fair. It's a
good place to start," she said.

Dispensaries that opened after the moratorium will have to shut down.
City officials are still working out how they will force those
operators to close. Some have threatened to sue if the council gives
preferential treatment to registered dispensaries.

Councilman Richard Alarcon, frustrated to learn that the council had
reduced the setback requirement from 1,000 to 500 feet, spearheaded
the effort to restore the greater distance.

"To think that we're going to have these places 500 feet from
schools, that to me is ridiculous," he said.

But Councilman Paul Koretz argued that the cap and distance
restrictions in the ordinance would be a de facto ban. "If you did
all of this, you might as well wipe out the whole system and have to
start over again," he said.

The council included residences in the list of sensitive uses on
Tuesday, an addition that many dispensary operators insist would make
it impossible to find a suitable location. "They essentially closed
down every dispensary in Los Angeles," Bolanos said.

City planning officials said they were unable to say exactly what the
impact would be. The department has not completed citywide maps that
would show the exact properties available under 500-foot and
1,000-foot setbacks.

The council also tangled over whether to restrict the amount of dried
marijuana and plants that dispensaries can have on hand and require
dispensaries to cultivate marijuana on-site.

Huizar argued that on-site cultivation was necessary to ensure that
dispensaries were not buying from the black market, but Koretz
wondered whether the requirement would lead to "stadium-size dispensaries."

The council decided against specific restrictions and chose simply to
require that dispensaries follow state law. That solution echoed the
approach the council took earlier on the issue of whether
dispensaries can sell marijuana. Faced with the adamant contention of
the city attorney's office that sales were illegal, the council
adopted vague language that allows cash contributions as long as they
comply with state law.

"It allows for the courts to decide that," said council President
Eric Garcetti, who had worked out the "elegant" language that
dispensary owners believe allows sales and the city attorney's office
believes ban them.

Huizar also tried to persuade the council to collect detailed
information on medical marijuana use, including the age, gender, city
of residence, medical condition and recommending physician's name for
every patient. He said that information would allow the council to
learn the real demand.

Koretz and Councilwoman Janice Hahn raised objections, questioning
why the information was necessary. Huizar agreed instead to ask city
officials to report back on what kind of information could be collected.