The City's Crackdown on Pot Shops
"Purple OG" marijuana at a collective in Woodland Hills on Aug. 26, 2009. (Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer)
Article Courtesy of the LA Daily News
Los Angeles' booming cottage industry of medical marijuana vendors is mobilizing to fight the city's three-month crackdown that threatens to shutter hundreds of dispensaries.
Vendors say they're prepared to take their battle to court to fulfill the promise of Proposition 215 -- the 1996 voter-approved measure that legalized marijuana for medicinal use. Attorney Stewart Richlin, who represents more than 100 dispensaries, said he believes dispensaries that have been or are about to be closed are entitled to monetary damages. An alternative would be a court injunction allowing them to reopen or stay open.
"State law (permits), without equivocation, the cultivation, transportation and distribution of medical marijuana," Richlin said, "and these cities now need to be forced by a judge and court to comply with the law.
"These are not criminals. They are patients and centers treating patients."
But city officials say they are pressing ahead with the crackdown launched in June, when regulators began reviewing applications for permits to operate the dispensaries.
They say a majority of the dispensaries are lucrative cash businesses that require customers to provide little or no proof of medical need. And because the dispensaries have mushroomed throughout the city, they are now attracting crime and violence.
"A CASH COW"
City Councilman Dennis Zine noted that armed robbers are targeting the dispensaries, including a heist this month at a Woodland Hills clinic, where an operator was shot during a holdup.
"Police have now connected suspects to three robberies at (Valley) dispensaries," Zine said. "These have become attractive to robbers because there's a lot of cash transactions, and robbers figure they're easy hits."
Zine is on the council's Planning, Land Use and Management committee that has been overseeing the permit review. The committee has so far denied all of the three dozen or so applications.
"What was designed as a compassionate use act has been turned into a cash cow," he said. "The law has been abused by the greed of people there to make a quick buck."
Zine said officials intend to close down the hundreds of dispensaries that have sprung up -- often several within a few blocks -- and to leave in place only enough to serve the legitimate needs of patients.
Marc Kent, director of a clinic in Woodland Hills and a spokesman for a citywide coalition of dispensaries, said the clinics whose applications have been denied have simply followed the advice of city officials who informed them that filing an application would allow them to remain open.
According to Kent, the coalition intends to seek an injunction against the city to keep it from closing the medical marijuana clinics whose applications have been rejected.
Kent said his coalition is hiring a law firm to represent them. He said dispensary operators believe their due process rights were violated because they received short notice of the hearings and were given only a few minutes to make their case -- with city officials virtually spending no time weighing the testimony.
City Councilman Ed Reyes, who chairs the council's Planning, Land Use and Management committee, denied accusations that the dispensary applicants were railroaded.
State law requires only 72 hours notice to place items on an agenda, Reyes said, and officials carefully considered each application.
NO APPROVALS SINCE JUNE
Most of the requests were denied because the dispensaries did not register with the city by the deadline in 2007. Once the requests are denied, the city can take legal steps to force the clinics to close.
Reyes said he intends to whittle away at the hardship exemption applications, holding hearings in the council on a dozen or more at a time.
In 2003, the state established legal protections for medical-marijuana users who were issued a doctor's prescription. By 2007, when Los Angeles had almost 200 dispensaries permitted under state law, the City Attorney's Office issued a moratorium to block new establishments until the city adopted a new ordinance.
Since then, 533 other dispensaries have opened without getting full authorization from the city by using a "hardship exemption" loophole. In all, according to industry and city estimates, the number of dispensaries in Los Angeles total about 800. By comparison, San Francisco has only about 30 dispensaries.
Among the San Fernando Valley dispensaries whose applications were denied were Aloha Spirit Organic Consumables in Reseda, West Coast Holistic Institute in Canoga Park, The Grasshopper 215 in Woodland Hills, and Hope Collective in Winnetka.
None of the applications considered since June have been approved.
JJ Popowich, president of the Winnetka Neighborhood Council, applauded the rejection of the Hope Collective in Winnetka, which had worked to shut it down.
"It's closed and boarded up," Popowich said. "The kicker was location. It was next to a liquor store and right around the corner from a topless bar and less than two blocks away from a school."
Officials said it is unknown how many of the dispensaries are considered to be operating legitimately but added most operate in violation of the moratorium.
Amy Weiss of Sherman Oaks, owner of the Buds on Melrose clinic in Los Angeles, disagrees.
"We are going to fight back because we've followed all the guidelines, everything (we're) supposed to do, but the city has failed to give us due process," Weiss said.
Medical Marijuana over the past year in Cali
- Jul 18: Oakland pot-growing plan worries small bud tenders
- May 2: 2 Costa Mesa pot clinics file suit against city ban
- Mar 2: Pot clinics challenge L.A. limits in lawsuit
- Jan 13: Council begins to shape pot guidelines
- Dec 16: City Council proposal would shut down nearly all pot clinics
- Nov 24: Council debates medical marijuana guidelines
- Nov 18: City Council calls for time on pot ruling
- Oct 19: City's pot dispensary ban on hold, Feds: Medical marijuana prosecutions not a priority..New medical marijuana policy issued
- Oct 15: 3 suspected of robbing L.A. pot dispensaries
- Oct 9: LAPD plays waiting game on pot issue, Crackdown looming for pot dispensaries
- Sep 24: District Court of Appeal could determine future of state's medical marijuana dispensaries, Four men arrested and fifth sought in marijuana-growing operation in Diamond Bar
- Sep 17: Pot shops sprouting — and so are robberies
- Aug 28: Police want public's help in solving pot-clinic heists
0 comments:
Post a Comment