ASA sues LA
March 2nd, 2010 | by Don Duncan |
Americans for Safe Access (ASA) filed a lawsuit today challenging a medical cannabis ordinance adopted by the Los Angeles City Council in January. ASA argues that tight timelines for relocating collectives, coupled with the most severe location restrictions in the state, amount to a de facto ban of otherwise legal patients’ associations. ASA and other advocates hold that the new ordinance will force virtually every collective in Los Angeles to close, leaving many patients without safe access to medicine.
Read the ASA Press Release and media coverage online.
To remain open, collectives must contend with an impossible set of criteria and unknown factors. They must be located 1,000 feet from a laundry list of “sensitive uses” and other collectives. Collectives cannot be in any property that abuts, is across the street, or across an alley from any property used as a residence. They must be proportionally distributed among the city’s thirty five Community Plan Areas – but there is no way to know in advance who else will be relocating to any given neighborhood!
If a collective must move to comply (the vast majority will have to), they have only seven days from the effective date of the new ordinance to tell the city where they will relocate, regardless of their obligations under an existing lease. Landlords who were already ambivalent about medical cannabis are even less interested in renting to collectives now. Some who will do so are exploiting the situation to charge outrageous premiums on a handful of suitable properties. One landlord is offering his allegedly qualified storefront to the highest bidder.
Why is the city making medical cannabis collectives jump though these hoops? It is certainly not about public safety. Even LAPD Chief Charlie Beck acknowledges that collectives are not magnets for crime. It would be more reasonable to allow those collectives that have a track record of trouble-free, legal operation to remain open in their current locations. There is certainly no need to fix what is not broken.
Unfortunately, some obstinate Councilmembers reacted to their own personal bias, critical media coverage, and consistently bad advice from the City Attorney’s office by insisting on the toughest possible regulations. More reasonable Representatives made concessions under pressure to “do something” about medical cannabis… and the result is an unworkable ordinance. Time will tell if the City Council has the political will to make the changes that will put the regulatory process back on track. If not, there may be more litigation and controversy before the city finally succeeds in adopting regulations that work for patients.
