POT CLINICS BANNED IN LA CRESCENTA

LA CRESCENTA -- Medical marijuana clinics looking to open in La
Crescenta will have to look elsewhere after the Los Angeles County
Board of Supervisors on Tuesday banned the dispensaries in
unincorporated areas of the county.

Supervisors had directed county planners in July to prepare an
ordinance banning all medical marijuana dispensaries from setting up
shop in unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County.

Supervisor Mike Antonovich has pushed for the ban, which he said
would help keep dispensaries from relocating to unincorporated
communities in Los Angeles, where the City Council passed a series of
tightened restrictions.

The county had already placed strict restrictions on medical
marijuana dispensaries, but officials pointed to the proliferation of
shops operating illegally as proof of the need for more regulation.

On Tuesday, the board voted 4 to 1 to approve the ban, with
Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky voting in opposition.

"A complete ban is not going to achieve the objectives that all of us
want to achieve with some of these out-of-control illegal
dispensaries that have popped up in unincorporated areas," he said.
"It's the illegal ones that don't come in for permits that are
creating a lot of the problems."

In response to a separate motion from Yaroslavsky, the board voted
unanimously to direct county officials to take aggressive action
against illegal clinics, including levying a fine of $1,000 per day.

In Glendale, city officials have held off on establishing regulations
for the dispensaries, instead enacting a moratorium to give city
attorneys more time to analyze the complicated, ever-changing legal landscape.

The county's new ban includes a provision that allows for a return to
existing regulations if the California Supreme Court rules that
outright bans are unconstitutional.

Howard Hakes, president of the Crescenta Valley Drug and Alcohol
Prevention Coalition, said he was glad to hear of the ban, citing
stories of recreational users easily attaining medical marijuana prescriptions.

"It's closing another loophole where the drugs were coming from," he
said. "I think it's great the supervisors saw that."

Crescenta Valley Town Council President Cheryl Davis said most
residents she's spoken with support a ban.

"They want the ban because they feel that if there is a need to get
medical marijuana there are legal dispensaries near us," she said.

At Tuesday's meeting, many dispensary operators and medical marijuana
patients spoke out against the ban, which they said would provide
unnecessary hardship for legal users.

"If you ban, it would take people such as myself out of the loop of
providing medicines for chronically ill patients," said Sue Taylor,
president of the nonprofit cooperative ICann Health Center. "The ban
would do nothing for these pot shops -- unregulated clubs that are
showing up everywhere."