L.A. APPROVES MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAW

City Council Passes an Ordinance That Will Close Hundreds of
Dispensaries and Limit Where They Operate.

The Los Angeles City Council, without debate, gave final approval
Tuesday to a medical marijuana ordinance that will impose some of the
toughest rules in the state but was assailed by advocates who said
the law will drastically restrict access to the drug.

The measure, which was finally passed more than 4 1/2 years after the
council started to discuss the issue, will do little to calm the
contentious debate over how Los Angeles should restrain a dispensary
boom that has seen hundreds of pot stores cluster on the city's major
boulevards.

At least two organizations representing dispensaries are deciding
whether to sue the city; one of them is also weighing whether to
collect signatures for a referendum. The city attorney, who says
state law does not allow collectives to sell marijuana, continues to
press a lawsuit against an Eagle Rock dispensary in a bid to get the
courts to decide the issue. And the Los Angeles County district
attorney is prosecuting dispensary operators.

The ordinance, which aims to erase the carnival-esque image of Los
Angeles as the capital of a weed resurgence, will allow city
officials to shut down hundreds of dispensaries. But it will also
impose restrictions on where they can be located, limits that
operators say will eliminate most sites outside of isolated industrial parks.

"It's a disaster for patients," said James Shaw, director of the
Union of Medical Marijuana Patients.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa plans to sign the ordinance because it
reduces the number of dispensaries and keeps them 1,000 feet from
schools and places of worship.

"This legislation isn't perfect, but the mayor feels it is a step in
the right direction, and it's time to focus our attention on other
pressing issues," spokeswoman Sarah Hamilton said.

The 9-3 vote was the second on the ordinance, which fell short last
week of the unanimous tally needed to pass a law on the first vote.
Bernard C. Parks, Jan Perry and Bill Rosendahl voted against it both times.

After the vote, council members expressed relief that an ordinance
would be in place soon, even if it draws legal challenges.

"I knew we'd get here eventually; I just didn't think it would take
so long," said Councilman Dennis Zine, who raised the issue in May
2005 when there were just four storefront dispensaries. "We're doing
an ordinance that we believe is lawful and that we believe can
withstand lawsuits. They've threatened lawsuits for many, many years,
so whatever we did in an ordinance we were going to be sued."

Councilman Ed Reyes, who led the effort to draft the ordinance,
acknowledged it may need changes. "We tried to interpret the state
law for the way it was written," he said.

The law will not take effect until the City Council approves the fees
that dispensaries will have to pay to cover the cost of registration,
a process that could take at least another 30 days, according to city
officials.

The ordinance caps the number of dispensaries at 70, but makes an
exception for those that registered with the city clerk in 2007 and
remain in their original locations or moved just once after their
landlords were threatened with federal prosecution. City officials
believe there are about 150 such dispensaries.

Among other restrictions aimed at ending L.A.'s late-night pot scene,
dispensaries will be required to close by 8 p.m., marijuana use will
not be allowed at the stores, and patients will be restricted to one
collective. The 17-page ordinance also imposes controls aimed at
preventing collectives from making profits, which are illegal under state law.

Neighborhood activists, who have been vastly outnumbered at every
City Council meeting, urged the lawmakers to act quickly to enforce
the ordinance. Lisa Sarkin, with the Studio City Neighborhood
Council, noted that there were 13 dispensaries in the area. "I can't
imagine how this could be necessary," she said.

Residents have complained about the over-concentration and have
worried about crime. As if to underscore that concern, the Los
Angeles Police Department sought the public's help Tuesday to
apprehend a suspect who robbed and shot an employee Jan. 8 at a
dispensary on Reseda Boulevard in Northridge.

Hundreds of dispensaries opened in L.A. as the council slowly debated
its proposed ordinance and failed to enforce a moratorium on
dispensaries. City officials believe upward of 500 will be required to close.

Once the ordinance takes effect, the city attorney's office will send
a series of letters to landlords and operators, a process that
Special Assistant City Atty. Jane Usher estimated would take about 45
days. Based on past experience, the office expects at least a third
to shut down. The city would take the others to court.

"The smoke should clear six months from the effective date of the
ordinance," she said.

Most of the allowed dispensaries will have to move within six months
to comply with the land-use restrictions. But operators are panicked
because the ordinance appears to give them just weeks to tell the
city where they are moving.

The ordinance requires dispensaries to be at least 1,000 feet from
other dispensaries and sites with so-called sensitive uses, such as
schools, parks and libraries. In a last-minute addition, the City
Council also restricted them from operating adjacent to or across a
street or alley from residential properties. This requirement,
operators said, eliminates most commercial streets, such as Melrose
Avenue and Pico and Ventura boulevards, where alleys separate stores
from homes.

Operators who have started to scour the rental market say there are
few locations that will work and that landlords, aware such
properties are scarce, are demanding exorbitant rents.

Barry Kramer, who runs California Patients Alliance, a registered
dispensary on Melrose Avenue in the Beverly Grove neighborhood, said
he has looked at six locations.

"We're scrambling right now," he said. "No, we have not found anything."

Kramer said he had anticipated the 1,000-foot restrictions and was
careful to look for space far from sensitive uses before he opened 2
1/2 years ago. It took him eight months to find one. But the alley
restriction will force him to move from a location where he says he
has operated discreetly with no complaints from neighbors.

"The frustration is that we've tried to work so hard, 2 1/2 years of
working with everything that they've brought down," he said. "Now,
all those good operators are going to be cast aside."

Kramer belongs to an organization representing medical marijuana
collectives that are registered with the city. The group, which has
tried for years to work with the council, is now looking to hire a
well-connected lobbyist to press for changes and a lawyer to
investigate whether to file a lawsuit.

The hundreds of dispensary operators who are not registered or who
opened in the last several years are also exploring whether to sue
the city or collect the 27,425 valid signatures needed to force a referendum.

"We are prepared to go forward and stop this ordinance," said Dan
Lutz, who runs the Green Oasis dispensary on the Westside and has
organized a group of operators. "I regret that we have to go this route."