COURT PUTS BREAKS ON L.A. POT LAW

City Officials Race to Fix Legal Flaws Before New Marijuana
Dispensaries Can Open.

A judge handed Los Angeles a setback in its faltering drive to limit
the number of medical marijuana dispensaries, granting a preliminary
injunction on Friday that bars the city from enforcing key provisions
in its controversial six-month-old ordinance.

The decision, issued by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge
Anthony J. Mohr, leaves the city with limited power to control pot
stores, which opened by the hundreds, angering neighborhood activists
when city officials failed to enforce a 2007 moratorium.

Near the end of his 40-page ruling, Mohr acknowledged "there is a
good chance that a large number of collectives could open once this
injunction takes effect," but said his order was warranted because
the dispensaries that sued the city are highly likely to prevail in a trial.

The City Council first discussed regulating dispensaries 5 1/2 years
ago. At the time, the Los Angeles Police Department could find just
four of them. It was five years before the city's ordinance, one of
the most complex and convoluted in the state, took effect.

More than 100 dispensaries have filed at least 42 lawsuits
challenging the ordinance. "We're singing 'Happy Days Are Here
Again,'" said Stewart Richlin, an attorney who represents nine
dispensaries, while David Welch, an attorney who represents more than
five dozen, described his clients as "ecstatic." He said Mohr's
decision would curtail city enforcement efforts. "It means they can't
use strong-arm tactics, such as arresting my clients," Welch said.

But Jane Usher, a special assistant city attorney, said, "I suspect
that their exuberance will be short-lived." She noted that Mohr, in
ruling against some provisions, also suggested ways to fix the
ordinance. "He left 90% of it intact and gave us methods for quickly
correcting the remaining provisions. I think we'll be gracious and
accept," she said.

Councilman Ed Reyes, who led the City Council's drive to draft the
ordinance, said he hoped to have a proposal to address the judge's
ruling by Monday. "My sense of urgency is that great," he said. "I've
already learned from the past that, if you open up the window a
little, people just crash through. We have to close that window as
quick as possible."

Mohr enjoined a crucial provision of the ordinance that outlawed all
dispensaries in Los Angeles except those that registered with the
city under the moratorium the council placed on new stores. He ruled
that the provision is unconstitutional because the ban was not
properly extended and expired almost two months before the Nov. 13,
2007, registration deadline for dispensaries.

"The justification for using that date as a bright line was
compromised, if not confounded, by the fact that it was unnecessary
to register," he wrote.

His decision throws into disarray the city's ongoing process for
identifying which dispensaries are qualified to stay open. The
council has already delayed by six months enforcement of the
ordinance's restrictions, such as requiring dispensaries to be at
least 1,000 feet from schools.

The judge, however, offered the council a quick remedy. He said the
council could simply allow all dispensaries that existed before a
certain date and ban the others. He noted that the documents that
dispensaries filed with the city in 2007 when they registered could
be used as proof they were operating at the time. "Amending the
ordinance accordingly would most likely be the easiest way to avoid
another equal protection challenge," he said.

Usher said the city attorney's office would probably recommend the
council do that.

Michael Larsen, president of the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council,
said, "I think what Judge Mohr has said is that the city attorney and
City Council have written a flawed ordinance, and they need to go
back to the drawing board very quickly to get it fixed."

Mohr's decision came after the fast-multiplying lawsuits were routed
to his courtroom. The judge delved deeply into the state's medical
marijuana laws in a series of hearings that stretched out over more
than half the year.

Defending the ordinance has cost the city many hours of legal time.
At some hearings, half a dozen city lawyers showed up. Usher said the
city would probably appeal some of the ruling.

The judge also decided the ordinance violated the due-process rights
of the dispensaries because it shut them down without a hearing, and
the privacy rights of patients because it required dispensaries to
make records on members available to the police.

The judge concluded state law preempts a provision that makes
violations of the ordinance subject to criminal penalties under the
municipal code and a provision that sunsets the ordinance after two
years, which he said is "a blanket ban" on collectives and "goes too far."