A city inspector dropped by the Bulldog Cafe Collective on Melrose Avenue last week to see if it was still in business. It was. Inside the spare, modern interior, dusky green marijuana buds were still displayed in plastic jars. An owner who is often at the store tweezed whimsically named strains into small vials for customers.
The store near Hancock Park is among the first 14 medical marijuana dispensaries targeted for extinction by a City Council chagrined that it allowed hundreds to open in Los Angeles despite a 21-month-old moratorium.
The inspections start the process to shut them down. At least one, in Atwater Village, has already closed. But others remain open, weighing their legal options.
City officials plan to decide this week on the next enforcement step.
On Monday, the council will accelerate its drive to roll back the number of dispensaries, holding hearings on 29 more. "We were trying to factor in a significant number so that we can make some headway," said Councilman Ed Reyes, the chairman of the planning committee. "I thought we were going too slow."
As the council embarks on this effort, it faces some obstacles.
The task is herculean, requiring hearings that could easily tie up the planning committee for hundreds of hours. The hearings have been rocky, as council members have struggled with complicated issues and dispensary operators have complained that they were being railroaded. And, if dispensaries refuse to buckle, the city could face costly court battles.
One of the Bulldog Cafe's owners, Anthony Folsom, said the rush to close dispensaries would hurt responsible businessmen and Los Angeles. "The city seems to be caving to political pressure," he said. "People who are in it for the right reason are going to get out, and what they are going to be left with is drug dealers."
The council wound up in this situation because it failed to act on dispensaries' applications for hardship exemptions from the moratorium. That inaction, which lasted almost 17 months, encouraged dispensaries to open; the city attorney's office had decided it could not take dispensaries to court until the council denied their applications.
In the last few months, applications poured in.
On June 9, when the council voted to stop accepting them, there were about 550. The decision did not become effective until Tuesday. By then, the total had hit 883.
"That's a huge number," Reyes said. "Thank God we stopped it."
