| Graphic: Cheech and Chong Tickets |
After extensive press coverage of the burgeoning medical marijuana delivery scene, a Los Angeles city councilman is asking his peers to ban mobile pot shops as part of its strict dispensary law that took effect Monday.
Councilman Jose Juizar introduced the amendment, calling mobile dispensaries a “ruse” to get around the city’s law, which effectively put 80 percent of L.A.’s dispensaries out of business this week, reports Dennis Romero at the L.A. Weekly.
Any marijuana delivery service would be explicitly prohibited under the new amendment, unless it involves a dispensary currently compliant with city regulations and is carried out by a patient’s “primary caregiver” — which would effectively end legal pot delivery in Los Angeles, according to the Weekly.
| Photo: The City of Los Angeles |
| L.A. City Councilman Jose Huizar: “This booming business can get out of control” |
”The city has received dozens of complaints regarding the new ruse that has arisen in an attempt to circumvent city and state regulations governing the city’s collectives,” Huizar claimed in his motion to ban mobile dispensaries.
Huizar urged the City Council to amend the ordinance quickly, an an “emergency basis.”
“If we remain silent, who knows?” Huizar said. “This booming business can get out of control.”
That remark was no doubt meant to remind the council members of their spectacular failure to control dispensary proliferation after they instituted an ill-fated “moratorium” on the pot shops in November 2007.
Hundreds of dispensaries opened after the original moratorium, exploiting a boilerplate “hardship” exemption included in its language.
Under the new ordinance, only the 186 dispensaries that were already operating when the November 13, 2007 moratorium can remain open.
Because some of those have now closed, City Attorney Carmen Trutanich’s office estimates there are now about 130 dispensaries grandfathered into the ordinance.
If any of those dispensaries close, they won’t be replaced until the number reaches 70.
Operators of 439 shops were issued cease-and-desist letters a month ago, instructing them to shut down by June 7.
Dispensary owners who defy the ordinance could face up to six months in jail, fines of up to $2,500, or eviction, according to Frank Mateljan, a spokesman for the City Attorney’s office, reports Tony Spearman at My Fox L.A.