LA City Council finally agrees on ordinance capping pot clinics, pushing from neighborhoods

LA moves to push pot clinics from neighborhoods

LOS ANGELES — The day feared by medical marijuana advocates arrived Tuesday when the City Council finally approved an ordinance intended to close hundreds of pot shops and banish those that remain to industrial areas.

The new law, which passed 9-3, caps the eventual number of dispensaries in the city at 70. But at this point, 137 shops that registered before a 2007 moratorium could be allowed to keep operating if they adhere to the new guidelines.

Yamileth Bolanos, who runs Pure Life Alternative Wellness Center, said she’ll have to close her clinic to comply with the new restrictions then reopen at a new location nine miles away.

“We’re supposed to be providing medicine to patients,” Bolanos said. “The city needs to decide if we are drug-slingers or if we are medical marijuana providers. This ordinance says we are drug-slingers.”

Operators also complained the move will be a hardship for their clients.

Cities across the state have grappled with ways to regulate medical marijuana after voters approved a 1996 ballot measure allowing sick people with referrals from doctors to possess the drug.

Some cities have banned pot clinics altogether, while others like West Hollywood, San Francisco and Oakland have allowed a limited number.

California is among 14 states that permit medical marijuana. Pot, however, remains illegal under federal law.

Closing the dispensaries likely won’t be easy.

“I don’t want to say this is an impossible task, but it’s going to take a lot more effort than maybe the city realizes at this point,” said Robert Mikos, a law professor specializing in federalism and crime policy at Vanderbilt University Law School. “Just because the city says ’stop what you are doing,’ doesn’t mean (dispensary owners) are going to give up easily.”

Los Angeles saw an explosion of medical marijuana facilities during the past several years as the council fumbled to pass an ordinance that would jibe with state law. Only four dispensaries were open in 2005, when discussions first began. Now there are as many as 1,000 — more than the number of Starbucks in the city.

The days of lax oversight are gone, said David Berger, a special assistant to City Attorney Carmen Trutanich, whose office drafted the ordinance.

“They’ve had it easy since 2005, and that is now coming to an end,” Berger said of the dispensary operators. “Relocating is a hardship, I understand that. I think the compromise the council has come up will be fair and equitable for everyone.”

Sarah Hamilton, a spokeswoman for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, said the mayor will sign the ordinance because it creates a buffer zone around schools and churches and complies with state law.

“This legislation isn’t perfect, but the mayor feels it is a step in the right direction, and it’s time to focus our attention on other pressing issues facing our city,” Hamilton said.

It will be at least 45 days before city officials can enforce the new rules, Berger said. A letter will be sent to dispensary owners and landlords asking for immediate closure. If they don’t comply, the city will likely seek an injunction.

Some pot advocacy groups had threatened to sue the city if the ordinance passed, saying it wouldn’t provide reasonable access for patients.

The ordinance calls for spreading the clinics evenly throughout the city with a community districting plan. The sites must be 1,000 feet from “sensitive uses” such as schools, parks and other gathering sites.

For instance, the Wilshire area west of downtown would have six clinics — the most under the new law — while free-spirited Venice, now with 17, would only have one.

In pot-friendly Venice, visitors can be dazed and confused with a slew of medical marijuana enticements. Two boardwalk stores tout doctors who can provide medical marijuana recommendations, and free magazines list seminars and outlets on where to get pot.

On one block, two dispensaries sit within 100 feet of one another.

Police Capt. Kevin McCarthy said the department hasn’t done a good job determining whether dispensaries are attracting crime. Instead, officers have been responding to complaints from people who live near the clinics.

“It’s more of the quality-of-life complaints,” McCarthy said. “They see people hanging out or wonder why a dispensary is on their street.”

Last year, Los Angeles police served 39 search warrants at pot clinics and made 60 arrests, with most occurring in the San Fernando Valley, where a dispensary employee was shot and robbed this month.

In October 2008, a group of men walked into La Brea Collective and shot and killed a security guard during an attempted robbery. Two men were arrested and await trial.