Los Angeles Zoning Administrator Michael Logrande has published his interpretation of what the city’s zoning rules mean for medical cannabis collectives in the city. His interpretation acknowledges that collectives can locate in any zone in the city, provided that they meet the requirements of the new ordinance. Collective operators struggling to find compliant locations may be surprised, however, to see a new hurdle in the interpretation. Mr. Logrande states that collectives “operate in a way that is similar to medical offices and clinics,” and should therefore have one parking space per two hundred square feet of floor space. This may make finding a location even harder than it is already.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa signed the final version of the city’s new medical cannabis ordinance on April 30. The state’s toughest regulations become effective on June 7. The City Attorney’s office sent letters to hundreds of collectives deemed in violation of the ordinance this week. The letters threaten civil and criminal penalties if the collectives remain open after the effective date. Time will tell if the city has the resources and political will to send in the police department to enforce its threats.
Collectives qualified to register under the ordinance are breathing only a little easier. Restrictions on where collectives can be located and on how many be in any one of the city’s thirty five Community Plan Areas mean that virtually all of the qualified collectives must relocate in short order. In response to a lawsuit filed by Americans for Safe Access (ASA), the city dropped a requirement that collectives provide their new address within seven days of the effective date. This is only a minor reprieve, however. All of the qualified collectives must complete a thorough (and expensive) pre-inspection process at their new address within thirty days after the city publishes the “priority list” of qualified candidates.
A handful of collectives will find suitable properties and jump through bureaucratic hoops in time to register under the ordinance, but it is unlikely that it will be the maximum number of seventy allowed. This is good news for compliance-minded collectives that are not qualified to register in the first round. Those that can wait six months to enter lotteries may still find an opening in one of the Community Plan Areas.
The Byzantine timelines and other restrictions in this ordinance have already generated litigation. Expect that to continue as qualified and un-qualified collectives run up against deadlines, unworkable restrictions, and regulations that violate their rights and common sense.
On April 27 activists confronted San Bernardino County Deputy District Attorney Bruce Brown in the lobby of his office about the foot dragging with the medical cannabis collective ordinance, alleged secret meetings about the ordinance, and continued arrests and prosecutions of medical cannabis patients.
This is a preview of Compassionate Use, a documentary by Eric Katz. It examines the medical cannabis ordinance passed through Los Angeles City Hall in early 2010. It is a study of local city government, business owners, voters, and patients in conflict. Allof the collective operators featured in the preview are members of the Greater Los Angeles Collective Alliance (GLACA), a voluntary association of collectives organized to develop and promote safety and operational guidelines.
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