Council Staying Focused on Marijuana Dispensary List
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — The minds of Los Angeles' City Council members have been on pot lately, as the body has begun to work its way through the massive list of medical marijuana dispensaries that had sprung up in recent months under what they viewed as a loophole in city law prohibiting new facilities.
Tuesday's Council agenda includes 38 dispensaries, including two Downtown at 111 E. 9th and 748 S. San Pedro. None are recommended for approval.
At an August 8 meeting of the council's Planning and Land Use Management committee, the San Pedro street facility's location brought out opposition from LAPD officer Mark Highland, Union Rescue Mission CEO Andy Bales and Central City East Association Executive Director Estela Lopez.
"We cannot bring any more uses into the district that compete with the efforts that are underway now to bring peace, calm, safety and security to the Skid Row area," said Lopez. "I can think of no worse location for a dispensary than the Skid Row area of Downtown Los Angeles."
"I merely have to take a walk around the block to breathe marijuana smoke in the air," said Bales. "It has destroyed enough lives on Skid Row."
In the end, the committee had little interest in specific stories, other than why the dispensaries presented had not registered within 60 days of the city's 2007 Interim Control Ordinance banning new outlets.
"We keep hearing comments about what is good, what is bad," said committee chair Ed Reyes. "This hearing is about what kept them from registering on time by the ICO. That's the essence of the statements that we need to hear."
An article in today's Daily Breeze indicates that the fight over dispensaries could drag out past just a council denial. The paper says that a coalition of dispensaries has hired legal representation to fight to keep denied outlets open.
Since the city passed the ICO in late 2007, dispensaries had continued to open, filing hardship exemption applications to work around the ban. In June, the city removed the hardship exemption, which it had only intended to provide relief for dispensaries that had been in operation at the time of the ICO.
Hundreds of applications were filed in the weeks leading up to the exemption's removal.
iluvhatemail on August 31, 2009, at 01:54PM – #1
I think what Bales is smelling is burning crack. Cause when I walk around that area that is all I can smell. Maybe he doesn't know what marijuana smells like? Also the blame belongs to the drug dealers, not medical marijuana farmacies. Anyone with $100 to get a medical license is most likely not living on the street.
In their defense, you have to be crazy or stupid to open a dispensary there. There is still a large gang presence that continues to feed these people real dangerous drugs. To try and setup something legitimate is just asking to be robbed.
Been There on August 31, 2009, at 06:25PM – #2
That's not just crack you smell, iluvhate. Paraquat burning along with the weed seeds, stems and shake sold on San Julian and nearby areas is also in the air ($5 and $10 bags, mostly). Sometimes the true marijuana scent has to fight to overcome the chemicals floating around.
You want to smell the good stuff, the pure thing? Try sniffing the product sold in the Core to the lofties. It's dealt mostly by baristas, waiters, security guards and white dealers working out of Bar 107.
By the way, it doesn't take a $100 medical permit in order to purchase from the dispensaries. You don't need a card from Medicann. Any licensed M.D. can just write "medical marijuana" on a prescription form. Just ask your doc for it next time you're in to discuss your hemorrhoids.
Most dispensaries will accept this. My dispensary did, and they'll honor it for a lifetime or--at the least--the lifetime of the dispensary.
Stanley Steinburg on September 13, 2009, at 05:43PM – #3
I would question a politician who wants to close only some businesses but not others and make no constructive progress to remedy the situation. To blatantly void the voice of the voters and create a moratorium, at first to control the situation, understandably, in order to enact new laws yet make no progress, CITYHALL, to create these needed laws and so they extend this moratorium and not allow for new clinics to open while again failing to be constructive. Competition is good for the patients and not so much for politicians wallets. So the patients speak and 800 clinics are open in Los Angeles, but no one talks about the few that close because they can't keep the client satisfied and so they pay politicians, hoping for laws to be enacted to close the new competition. People voted not 150 clinics but for freedom to toke. Let us Toke!