POT DISPENSARIES FACE A TICKING CLOCK

But Legal Issues Could Stall or Stop Their Closure

The clock is ticking on 26 medical marijuana dispensaries throughout
the county, including two on the mountain, as the county moves to
shut them down.

But even as enforcement efforts move ahead, a pair of recent court
rulings has cast doubt on the county's ability to force the
dispensaries to close.

Acting under a land-use regulation enacted by county supervisors,
effective on May 5, Code Enforcement officials have begun a 13-step
compliance process against all 26, including Budmart in Skyforest and
the Woodland Healing Center in Crestline, said county spokesman David Wert.

Under that process, dispensaries are given increasingly higher fines
the longer they stay in business and increasingly shorter compliance periods.

Wert said Budmart, the dispensary that opened on Highway 18 in
Skyforest in February, was at step nine on July 1, whereas the
Woodland Healing Center, located on Crest Forest Drive, had reached
the third step that same day.

Each step involves the county issuing a notice to comply, Wert said.
If dispensaries remain in noncompliance, after the 13th step the
county will begin civil action to close the noncomplying dispensary,
he explained.

UNCERTAINTY ARISES

But whether litigation to close the pot shops can succeed is becoming
less certain, as conflicts between local ordinances, state laws and
federal legislation remain unresolved, and court rulings in favor of
the dispensaries mount up.

In one such ruling, the California Fourth District Court of Appeal on
June 21 stayed a Riverside County Superior Court judge's ruling that
prohibited Cooperative Patients' Services from having marijuana
anywhere in the city of Temecula.

Attorneys for the city say the facility is a medical marijuana
dispensary, which city ordinance bans. Temecula has sued to halt what
city officials say is a public nuisance.

But the organization's officials say their facility is actually a
nonprofit agricultural co-op that doesn't sell pot. Instead, patients
who have a doctor's approval to use medical marijuana use their
facilities to swap the drug with each other.

In Colton, too, the future of banning medical marijuana dispensaries
is now less than clear. Though a San Bernardino Superior Court judge
had issued a preliminary injunction in April ordering a medical pot
collective in that city to close, the same appellate court delayed
the implementation of his order until it rules on whether the city's
ban is consistent with provisions of the state constitution.

ADDED RULINGS

It was not immediately clear when the Fourth District Court of Appeal
plans to rule in the Colton case. The same court has also stayed
lower-court rulings against dispensaries in Riverside and in
Wildomar, a three-year-old city in Riverside County with a population
of just over 14,000.

A major problem local governments are having in banning medical
marijuana dispensaries is that different levels of government view
medical marijuana from different perspectives.

While the federal government outlaws pot and lists it on Schedule 1
(the most serious) under the federal Controlled Substances Act,
California voters have approved Proposition 215. Known as the
Compassionate Use Act of 1996, it allows both patients with a valid
doctor's recommendation, and their designated primary caregivers, to
possess and grow marijuana for personal use.

And, while many local governments have sought to ban dispensaries on
the grounds that pot is illegal under federal law, courts have ruled
recently that localities can't simply ban medical marijuana outlets
based on the provisions of federal law.

LOCAL LAWSUITS

San Bernardino County's enforcement efforts are not being challenged
solely by lawsuits in other jurisdictions; there is a growing number
of legal challenges on file in this county that seek to overturn the
county's own ordinance, a law that requires residents of
unincorporated areas who wish to grow their own medical marijuana to
do so indoors.

One such suit was filed by Lawrence Bynum, a Riverside civil
attorney, on behalf of six dispensaries, including Budmart in
Skyforest, the outlet the county's Wert said is in its ninth stage of
enforcement.

The thrust of his suit, Bynum said, is that Proposition 215, and the
California attorney general's guidelines for interpreting it, allow
for the existence of storefront dispensaries, while local
governments, in the face of that law, are illegally trying to close them.

Bynum said he is optimistic he can win for his clients, but added
that he's concerned about AB 1300, a bill currently alive in Sacramento.

"One sentence in AB 1300 says local jurisdictions have the ability to
regulate these businesses," Bynum said. "I think that could open the
door to banning them."

'LESS AGGRESSIVE'

As far as the enforcement of regulations goes, Bynum said, San
Bernardino County is "less aggressive" than some other jurisdictions,
by choosing lawsuits rather than criminal enforcement, which he
called "harassment."

Nevertheless, for dispensaries that resist county enforcement it can
take only about 60 days from the time the county issues a notice to
comply until the county takes that business to court.

But uncertainties and adverse court rulings aside, the county is
undeterred in pursuing enforcement, Wert said.

"We're moving forward as we always have, until some judge tells us we
can't," he said. "The county believes it's on solid legal ground, and
the county has prevailed every step of the way so far."

FIGHTING BACK

Wert added that of the 26 dispensaries of which the county has
demanded compliance, nine have taken legal action against the county.
Court hearings on most of those countersuits are scheduled for this
month or August, he said.

For all the legal uncertainty with which it's having to contend, the
county may have an unexpected ally in its efforts to drive medical
marijuana dispensaries out of business, Wert said. In three
instances, including the Woodland Healing Center in Crestline, the
businesses' landlords "have taken action to get them out," Wert said.

Those efforts may have been spurred by letters, sent in recent months
by the U.S. Department of Justice, to owners of buildings housing
dispensaries. The letters warned landlords they could face prison
terms, massive fines and the loss of their property, under the
so-called "crack-house law," unless they oust their tenants.