Jan Perry

One day after approving onerous new restrictions on where medical cannabis collectives can be located, the Los Angeles City Council seemed ready to rethink the issue today. Spurred by comments from Councilmember Ed Reyes, several members indicated they were willing to revisit Tuesday’s motion by Councilmember Perry to double the size of the buffer zone between collectives and a laundry list of sensitive uses to 1,000 feet – including any property used as a residence. The change of heart is good news for tens of thousands of patients in Los Angeles. Perry’s unexpected motion might have excluded collectives in most of the properties in Los Angeles.

The City Council has delayed a vote on the final ordinance, including Perry’s motion, until Wednesday, December 16, when the Planning Department is expected to produce maps illustrating 500 and 1,000 buffer zones around sensitive uses and residential use. Early research suggests the maps will show little opportunity for legally organized collectives in the city. This may spur City Councilmembers to reconsider the previous language, which required collectives to locate 500 feet from sensitive uses and avoid only those properties that abut residential use.

City Councilmembers deserve credit for rethinking their 11^th-hour decision to adopt the unworkable amendment, but grassroots activists played an important part in changing their minds. A team of activists from Americans for Safe Access (ASA), the Greater Los Angeles Collective Alliance (GLACA), and others stayed up late calling and emailing City Council offices after yesterday’s decision. Then, they got up early to follow up in the morning and be at City Hall by 10:00 AM.

Advocates were pleasantly surprised when the City Council approved the delay without objection. But they didn’t just walk away happy. A team of ASA and GLACA representatives fanned out across the fourth floor of City Hall after the decision, visiting each Council office to reinforce their message. They will follow up with meetings, phone calls, and emails before Wednesday’s vote. The dedication of this all-volunteer team is admirable. Many of them have been working on this issue for years.

Grassroots pressure has help push the city of Los Angeles towards regulations since 2005. Citizen advocates helped stop early plans to ban collectives outright, thwarted plans to prohibit sales of medicine, and defeated a proposal to restrict collective cultivation to a single location. That is a great track record against powerful foes, who want to roll back safe access in the city.

The City Council will take up the draft ordinance at the City Council meeting on Wednesday, December 16, in their meeting beginning at 10:00 AM. The meeting will be in Room 340 at City Hall.

Ed Reyes

The Los Angeles City Council will not be voting this week on a medical cannabis ordinance approved by the Planning and Land Use Management (PLUM) Committee. The LA Times reports that City Councilmember Ed Reyes wants more time to resolve the complicated issues surrounding the ordinance, and staff at City Hall tell me that more committee hearings may proceed a vote by the full City Council. It is possible that a joint committee meeting between the PLUM and Public Safety Committees will address the necessary changes.

At this point, delay may be beneficial for patients. The City Attorney’s latest draft version has some big flaws – including lack of protection for patient privacy, a ban on edible preparations, and unreasonable restrictions on where collectives can be located. Americans for Safe Access (ASA) recommends substantial changes to the draft. It will be easier to make improvements like these at the committee level than it will be before fourteen or fifteen City Councilmembers.

City Councilmembers are right not to be bullied into adopting a bad ordinance. This issue is too complicated and important to rush.

LA City Attorney Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich

City staff reported some progress during the brief discussion. Staff has mapped “sensitive uses” for 35% of the city. When the entire city is mapped, Planning Department staff will draw radii of various sizes around these addresses to determine how far collectives and cooperatives must be from a laundry list of uses, which may include schools, churches, parks, beach access points, youth-oriented businesses, places where young people tend to congregate, public beach access points, drug treatment facilities, and on and on.

Debate about what constitutes a sensitive use and how far permitted collectives must be from each is likely to be one of the most contentious debates in the process of writing the new ordinance. Neighbors concerned about crime and unchecked expansion in the number of patients’ associations are calling for broad buffer zones from a wide range of uses. Councilmember Paul Koretz, who is temporarily serving on the committee in former Councilmember Jack Weiss’ seat, expressed concern that the buffer zones must not be so large as to make operating a collective impossible. Chairman Ed Reyes assured listeners that the goal was to have an enforceable ordinance that secured access for those in need.

Buffer zones will be one of the contentious issues in the new draft ordinance, but there is an even more serious issue that threatens to complicate the process late in the game. City Attorney Trutanich has yet to weigh in on an unpublished draft ordinance circulated by city staff last week. Advocates worry that the City Attorney may be influenced by staff held over from former City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, who regarded all storefront collectives and sales of cannabis as illegal. If Trurtanich ignores City Council instructions and case law affirming the legal status of collectives, he may revert to Delgadillo’s position that “illegal” activity can not be regulated. This would be a serious set back for patients and advocates.

Representatives from Americans for Safe Access (ASA) and the Greater Los Angeles Collectives Alliance (GLACA) are working hard to educate the City Attorney and his staff about the California Attorney General’s guidelines for medical cannabis, which recognize that legally organized and operated collectives may maintain storefront facilities; and about important case law upholding the legal status of patients’ associations in Los Angeles. Recent ASA court victories in Butte County and San Diego are the cornerstone of this effort.

Trutanich may pleasantly surprise advocates, who rallied around his candidacy in hopes of defeating former City Councilmember and medical cannabis opponent Jack Weiss in this year’s runoff election. However, his silence does little to reassure the community at this strategic juncture. Unless Trutanich repudiates his predecessor’s ideological stance and vocally supports real implementation, advocates may soon conclude that “better than Jack Weiss” is too low a standard for the City Attorney.

No one will benefit if the debate about new regulations regresses to where it was a year ago, when law enforcement and a reluctant City Attorney impeded regulation based on personal bias and faulty legal analysis. It is past time to move forward with sensible regulations, which are proven to protect patients and the community by reducing crime and complaints around collectives. The City Council should be eager for Los Angeles to join dozens of other jurisdictions that have already realized these benefits – especially given a growing backlash from neighborhood groups and critical media.

The Planning Department has assembled a project team to craft a land use ordinance that specifies in which zoning districts collectives and cooperatives can establish storefront facilities and how far they must be from other medical cannabis facilities, sensitive uses, and businesses prone to nuisance activity (liquor stores, adult entertainment, etc.). The Building and Safety Department is coordinating on separate operational protocols, which are likely to include regulations concerning hours of operation, required security, and other measures.

Observers were surprised by a proposal from the Planning Department for a more lenient permit process than the Conditional Use Permit (CUP) proposed by advocates. City Planner Alan Bell told the committee that permits may be available to any collective or cooperative that meets the land use and operational requirements without a public hearing, while other facilities can request an exception to some requirements through an administrative hearing process. We can anticipate some controversy on this topic. Neighborhood groups want more input in the permit process, and even some advocates want a tougher process to allay community concerns.

The City Council’s legislative analyst has already circulated language for the ordinance to various departments for review, but has not yet discussed the matter in detail with newly elected City Attorney Carmen Trutanich. City staff is doing technical analysis on the draft ordinance now. Part of this process includes developing maps showing what territory would be off limits given differing requirements for distances between collectives and sensitive uses.  PLUM Committee Chairman Reyes asked staff to report back on their timeline in two weeks.

A representative from the Code Enforcement said that his department is already enforcing hardship application denials, saying that five facilities have already closed and six have been referred to the City Attorney’s office for further enforcement. Newly elected City Councilmember and PLUM Committee member Paul Koretz was the first member to sound a cautionary note regarding hardship applications. Koretz questioned the wisdom of closing facilities that might ultimately qualify under the new ordinance. It remains to be seen whether this represents a softening of the committee’s hard line approach to hardship applications.

I encouraged committee members to be careful about recommending any regulations containing a laundry list of sensitive uses, pointing out that the well-regulated facilities anticipated by this ordinance would not be problematic for neighbors. Councilmember Huizar echoed this sentiment. He related his positive experience visiting Cornerstone Research in Eagle Rock. The Councilmember said there was no reason that facility could not be near a sensitive use, adding he was rethinking a proposed 1,000-foot requirement in the current draft.

I also encouraged the committee to abandon plans to require collectives to disclose the names of patient-cultivators. Chairman Reyes agreed to hear more on this topic. Reyes also expressed concern about doctors writing recommendations too freely. I reminded committee members that enforcement for doctors falls to the California Medical Board, which has already sanctioned doctors who fail to uphold the agency’s standards.

In a subsequent item, the PLUM Committee also recommended denial of a hardship application for a collective on Venice Blvd. When questioned by Councilmember Koretz about what constitutes a hardship under the moratorium, a representative from the City Attorney’s office said that the decision was a exclusively legislative one, which must only have a “rational basis.” The representative reiterated that the hardship application did not give anyone permission to operate in violation of the moratorium.