City Council Considers Amending Medical Marijuana Ordinance

The Los Angeles City Council heard a motion Tuesday requesting the City Attorney to prepare and present to the council an "interim control ordinance" aimed at regulating medical marijuana dispensaries in the city.

The Dec. 14 motion, introduced by District 14 and 5th District Councilmember Paul Koretz, was a direct response to last Friday's ruling by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Anthony J. Mohr, which invalidated large portions of a medical marijuana ordinance adopted by the City Council last January. Among other things, the ordinance outlaws medical marijuana dispensaries that opened after a November 2007 City Council moratorium on new medical marijuana facilities.

The purpose of the motion was to avoid rendering key portions of the ordinance ineffective in the aftermath of Judge Mohr's ruling, while at the same time clarifying that the City reserved the right to appeal the judge's injunction, which is expected to be effective starting Jan. 7, 2011. Mohr has ordered the City Council to rewrite the ordinance because, he said, the deadline to register dispensaries with the city and the state had not been properly extended by two months to the November 2007 cut-off date and is therefore not legally valid.

"While the City Attorney evaluates the court's ruling and then recommends to the Council and Mayor a litigation strategy going forward, it is crucial that the successes achieved by the city thus far with regard to both public safety and curbing the proliferation of unauthorized medical marijuana collectives remain intact," the motion said.

"The city can safeguard these successes by immediately clarifying and/or amending certain portions of the ordinance consistent with the court's ruling, while at the same time preserving the City's rights on appeal," the motion said. The City Council will vote on the ordinance after the City Attorney presents a rewritten ordinance.

The provisions of the ordinance have been under intense litigation since it was adopted by the City Council in January 2010. The ordinance, which Huizar helped introduce, capped the number of medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles at 70, while permitting some dispensaries to remain open if they had registered before the November 2007 moratorium.

Eagle Rock has 10 medical marijuana facilities, only four of which are operating within the law, according to Huizar's office and the . Shutting illegal dispensaries in Eagle Rock is one of Huizar's top administrative priorities.

"The marijuana advocates and dispensary owners have said from the beginning that they will drag this process out as long as possible through costly and drawn-out lawsuits, and I believe that's exactly what they are doing," said Michael Larsen, president of the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council, which, along with Huizar, has expressed concern that Eagle Rock has a disproportionately high number of medical marijuana facilities.

"The frustrating and tragic thing is that the real price will be paid by communities like Eagle Rock," Larsen said.

You can read a copy of today's City Council motion as well as Judge Anthony Mohr's Dec. 10 injunction against the City Council's medical marijuana ordinance in the Pdf section on this page.