LOS ANGELES — Months after the city got serious about running many of its medical-marijuana dispensaries out of town with strict regulations, the shops are cropping up again.
A judge recently scratched key portions of the ordinance that city officials spent years crafting, noting in his Dec. 10 ruling granting a preliminary injunction that a large number of shuttered collectives could reopen. Attorney David Welch, who represents clinics that sued the city when they were forced to close, said nearly 60 collectives have planned to open, and 10 have done so.
“The injunction removes the fear my clients have of being prosecuted and arrested during litigation,” Welch said.
Los Angeles has been lost in a legal haze on the medical-marijuana front over the past year, partly because it was faced with closing more than 430 clinics during the summer and having proponents challenging city officials at every turn.
Despite passing the ordinance in January, Los Angeles appears to be no closer to figuring out how to regulate the clinics. About 180 collectives applied to remain open, but only about 40 met all the ordinance’s criteria, which included being at least 1,000 feet from schools, parks and other gathering sites.
City Attorney Carmen Trutanich recently said the judge’s ruling doesn’t mean dispensaries can start cropping up once again. His office said the injunction wouldn’t take effect until next month.
Eric Matuschek, owner of Starbudz, is willing to take his chances. He said the ordinance unfairly targets some clinics that operate legally under state law, and city officials should focus their efforts elsewhere.
“It obviously has to be controlled and regulated,” he said. “Go after the illegal clubs. That would keep them extremely busy.”
Determining which clinics should be allowed to operate has been a major challenge for city officials.
Superior Court Judge Anthony Mohr said the local law was unconstitutional on several grounds. He said the ban on new dispensaries hadn’t been extended properly. He said the due process rights of operators of shuttered dispensaries were violated because they weren’t provided a hearing to argue against the closure. The ordinance invades patients’ privacy rights, he said, because police can access personal information without a warrant or subpoena.
He suggested in his ruling that the City Council could amend the ordinance to avoid further litigation.
City Councilman Ed Reyes said the council likely will ask the city attorney next month to draft new ordinance language that addresses the judge’s concerns.
