Cities, counties no longer mellow about pot dispensaries

latimes.com

At least 120 cities and eight counties in California have banned medical pot shops, fearing crime and profiteering. Some cite the proliferation of dispensaries in L.A.

By John Hoeffel

November 10, 2009

Varieties of marijuana line a shelf in Green Oasis, a dispensary in Los Angeles. Nearly 1,000 pot shops have opened in the city since a 2007 moratorium. (Genaro Molina, Los Angeles Times / October 19, 2009)

As hundreds of medical marijuana dispensaries have opened this year in a startling rollout across California, unnerved local officials have started to push back aggressively.

Many cities and a few counties have banned them. Others have imposed emergency moratoriums. And some have started to sue dispensaries to force them to close. So far, the state’s courts have sided with local officials.

For marijuana advocates, who have seen over-the-counter sales become commonplace and watched the steady drift of California’s vibrant weed counterculture into the mainstream, these setbacks are a discordant development.

“At this point, we’re not winning a battle we should be winning,” said Joe Elford, chief counsel for Americans for Safe Access, who believes that local bans violate state law. “There’s been this kind of backlash of ‘Let’s give ourselves this great enforcement tool of just banning dispensaries.’ ”

Three years ago, Elford’s organization found that 29 California cities had banned dispensaries. Now, at least 120 have done so, according to advocates and opponents of medical marijuana. That’s a quarter of the state’s cities. In recent months, the pace appears to have accelerated. The number of cities allowing dispensaries has grown much more slowly, from two dozen to about 30.

Last week, Red Bluff, about 130 miles north of Sacramento, became the latest city to vote for a ban, one that outlaws not only dispensaries, but also collectives and marijuana cultivation. This week, Nevada City, a postcard-perfect Gold Rush city in the Sierra foothills, is likely to follow.

Los Angeles, the apogee of the uncontrolled dispensary boom, has become the scare story that has driven many other cities to act. The city attorney’s office estimates that about 1,000 dispensaries have opened, most of them after a moratorium that was adopted in 2007.

“We actually tell cities around the state to look at the failure in Los Angeles,” said Paul Chabot, the founder of the Coalition for a Drug Free California. “That’s why the cities are moving fast and furious across the state to adopt bans.”

This blow-back has come as local politicians look at the experiences of other cities and decide that they don’t much like what they see: Anyone who wants to smoke pot can easily get a doctor’s recommendation; dispensaries can attract crime; and some operators are in it for the money even though profits are prohibited.

Even places widely seen as pot-friendly have become wary.

Santa Cruz passed a law in 2000 to allow dispensaries. One opened in 2005, another in 2006, in the same industrial area. City officials say they have not had any trouble with them.

But Mike Ferry, a Santa Cruz city planner, said he was inundated with inquiries about opening dispensaries after the Obama administration announced in March that federal agents would lay off stores that adhered to state law.

“It goes from a trickle to a call a day, from all over the state and even out of the state,” he said.

The city studied its dispensaries and learned that about three-quarters of their customers were not from Santa Cruz. The prospect of being a regional marijuana hub did not excite city leaders.

“We kind of felt like we were going to end up with a concentration,” he said.

City officials have recommended a cap at two.

Some towns that once welcomed dispensaries have switched off the “Vacancy” sign. Dixon, a bedroom community on Interstate 80 between the Bay Area and Sacramento, decided years ago to allow dispensaries. None opened. This year, several people who did not live in the city inquired about starting one.

This was surprising to Jack Batchelor, the mayor. Why Dixon, a city of about 17,500?

“My sense is that it would be people living outside Dixon and driving by,” Batchelor said.

Given the push-the-envelope innovation in California’s marijuana industry, Batchelor’s fear that his city might host the first drive-through dispensary doesn’t seem far-fetched. It was not an appealing prospect, he said.

The more Batchelor learned, the more he worried. On the web, he realized how easy it was for anyone to get a doctor’s recommendation for marijuana. He read reports that dispensaries attract crime. And he decided that he didn’t believe that the aspiring dispensary operators had approached Dixon out of compassion for its residents.

“It’s a monetary issue,” he said. “Here’s a way to expand their business.”
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 at 11:25 pm and is filed under Freedom, Justice, Marijuana, News, Protest. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.