This will all happen next week, according to to Council President Eric Garcetti’s office.
“I am very disappointed that the judge won't let us do our job,” Smith, the chairman of the Public Safety Committee, said earlier this week, adding that it would force the council to move quickly.
The council’s planning committee has spent years debating how to control dispensaries and just recently sent the proposed ordinance to Smith’s committee.
The measure, drafted by City Atty. Carmen Trutanich’s office, would prohibit sales of medical marijuana. In Smith's view, that means most dispensaries would be forced to close, including the 186 that the city allowed to operate despite adopting a moratorium on dispensaries in 2007.
“I would prefer to stop all sales of medical marijuana in the city, but the ordinance proposed by City Atty. Trutanich comes as close as the law will allow,” he said. Most dispensaries in the city sell marijuana and pay state sales taxes, though operators say the transactions are donations and they are just recouping their operating costs.
The proposed ordinance would require all the dispensaries that opened after the moratorium to close immediately, and bar them from reopening for six months. The original 186 dispensaries would be allowed to remain open for six months to give them time to comply with the rules.
Photo: Medical marijuana. Credit: Los Angeles Times archives.
