Dispensaries in Los Angeles could continue to accept cash for medical marijuana under a provision approved by the City Council on Tuesday, after it adopted language carefully crafted to maneuver past the city attorney's adamant position that state law bars the sale of the drug.
Plowing through more than 50 proposed changes to its draft medical marijuana ordinance, the council also signaled that it would probably cap the total number of dispensaries at between 70 and 200. The council asked city officials to return next Wednesday with studies on caps and on restrictions that would keep dispensaries either 500 feet or 1,000 feet from places such as schools and parks. The council also added new restrictions on dispensaries and rejected efforts to loosen requirements.
By the close of the daylong session, the council had made substantial headway on an issue that has bedeviled it for years.
With a judge's recent ruling that the city's moratorium on dispensaries was invalid, the city has almost no control over the hundreds that have opened.
The council, which avoided the word "sales" on the advice of its lawyers, decided that Los Angeles would allow "cash contributions, reimbursements and compensations" as long as they comply with state law.
Council President Eric Garcetti stepped in to negotiate the provision after an extended discussion. "We have some very elegant and flexible language that will adjust as state law is defined," he said.
City Atty. Carmen Trutanich and Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley had urged the council to explicitly ban the sale of marijuana.
William Carter, the chief deputy city attorney, said his office was following state law and recent court decisions, which led to the conclusion that collectives could only cultivate marijuana, not sell it. "Until they change the law, what we're stuck with is this collective model, not the drive-through Starbucks model," he said.
Several members harshly criticized the city attorney's office. Councilman Ed Reyes, who oversaw the effort to write an ordinance, accused the office of pressing "a political point of view that has nothing to do with objective advice," while Councilman Paul Koretz, who helped write the state law as an assemblyman, said: "I think we're getting advice from one direction."
Council members expressed a clear interest in caps, most likely distributed among the city's 21 police divisions.
