BIXBY KNOLLS POT JOINTS CAUSE NEIGHBORHOOD PAIN

Marijuana, Mary Jane, Ganja -- medicine? Perspective has everything to
do with the recent events in City Council chambers as council members
try to navigate the marijuana medical dispensaries ordinance that they
created in recent months.

In Bixby Knolls, two collectives have been operating on either side of
a bakery, within 1,000 feet of a school -- one of the disallowed areas
in the original ordinance. Neighbors who share the alley with the
collectives have voiced complaints of loud music late at night, trash
in the alley, and an incidence of graffiti from what appears to be
customers of the dispensaries.

"We are so frustrated with the police's refusal to do anything about
the collectives! " resident Christie Bettendorf said in an e-mail.
"It's pretty bad back in the alley. I've seen drug transactions and
urinating on the back wall of the law offices, and smelled the
product. The music is so loud it rattles our windows and the alley has
become a racetrack. We've had it!

"It's the fact that there are two, and neither one won the
lottery."

"The Nature Cann and Long Beach Patients Group collectives could not
apply for the lottery because of their proximity to a school," said
Erik Sund, the city's business relations officer working on enforcing
the current ordinance.

EPHS (Educational Partnership High School) is a continuing education
high school less than 1,000 feet to the north of the collectives on
Atlantic Avenue.

One founding member of a Bixby Knolls collective spoke up under the
condition that only his first name be used -- Alan.

"It's irrelevant what the lottery said," Alan said. "We applied for a
business license before the ordinance was created, long before the
lottery. We're operating under the constitution of California, not
under an ordinance that keeps changing every few weeks."

Alan said his credit card was charged for the applicable fees
including an assessment that would go to the Bixby Knolls Business
Improvement Association -- one that the association never received.

He said a fire inspector came to the collective and approved the
building, but a license was never sent in the mail.

"Collectives get issued a permit, not a business license; business
licenses were not issued to them either," Sund said. "Some businesses
(collectives) apply for business licenses, but call it aromatherapy or
candles."

Sund outlined the process that includes inspectors completing a
one-time inspection in the first 30-45 days of the application to make
sure that the operations match the application. Each inspector has an
area that they monitor and they can drop in and see what the business
is doing -- and if it is what they said it would be.

"That EPHS office is zoned as an administrative office," said Alan,
"not as a school where students would be."

City officials maintain that EPHS is a member of the Long Beach
Unified School District as a school.

In 1996, the citizens of California voted to allow the use of medical
marijuana in homes. Alan contends that the passage of Proposition 215
is the prevailing law of the land and that restricting access to
doctor-recommended medicinal marijuana is a violation of patients'
rights.

However, federal law deems it illegal.

"It's legal in California, but cities have banned it. Municipalities
are allowed to create ordinances to manage it," Sund said.

Alan said they are just trying to be a good business neighbor and
comply with the city while maintaining a compassionate service to
legitimately sick people who benefit from using medicinal marijuana.

"It's a difficult time in our industry," he said. "We screen our
patients so that we are not accepting young people trying to pick up
medicine for illicit uses.Our patients are disabled veterans, cancer
patients, blindaE& I was very open with the landlord about what we
were going to do -- there was no ordinance when we started back in
February."

Last week, City Council voted to amend the ordinance to also include
parks in the 1,000-foot buffer zone. Nine more dispensaries, that each
won a spot in the lottery, will need to close their doors once the
revised ordinance is approved. The original amendment proposed
including a buffer around day care centers, and limiting the
dispensaries to two per council district, among other changes.

The Bixby Knolls dispensaries were a topic at Eighth District
Councilwoman Rae Gabelich's coffee meeting on Saturday, Nov. 20.

"I think we need to see through what we started," Gabelich told a
group of about 15 residents. "If we included all those areas (in the
recent requested amendment), then there's no place for them and we
should have never allowed them in the first place."

Gabelich clarified that the collectives that do not comply with the
ordinance will be closed. She said the process might be slowed simply
because that department is short-handed due to budget cuts.

"For the most part, collectives are pretty inconspicuous. There will
be changes along the way," Gabelich said, maintaining a wait-and-see
approach.

Bixby Knolls resident Mary Hancock Hinds commented, "It's a slippery
slope. Children start seeing that marijuana is okay -- that it's
medicine -- we have to be careful with that."

Sund said the process of closing collectives is underway.

"Letters were issued by the City Attorney's office and sent as a
certified letter to the collectives. They have 30 days to close from
the date of the letter."

In addition to the letter, Sund said an inspector posts it on the
business -- literally tapes it up.

"It usually stays up for 24 hours," he said. "The inspector takes a
picture of it up. The property owners are notified as well --
landlords and property managers."

Reactions have been mixed.

"Some are complying, some are waiting to see Long Beach's reaction,"
Sund said.

The amended language of the ordinance will come back to the City
Council as soon as Dec. 7, according to Jonathan Kraus, Gabelich's
chief of staff.

As for the Bixby Knolls collectives specifically, Sund said, "We're
working on them to comply with the ordinance. If they don't comply,
we'll have to progress to the next steps, which could be a legal option."

"Stay tuned -- it's sure to change again," Gabelich said of the
ordinance.