Marijuana Dispensaries Get Reprieve After Ban is Put on Hold Thanks to Signature Drive

By Dennis Romero Thu., Aug. 30 2012 at 2:10 PM

@rapstar_crew

Update: Details, including confirmation of the ban's temporary demise, added at the bottom. First posted at 11:48 a.m.

Whew. You can exhale now. Marijuana advocates who want you to be able to vote on overturning L.A.'s weed dispensary ban turned in their signatures this morning.

While they had yet to be verified, our understanding of the situation, seconded this morning by the L.A. City Attorney's office, is that Los Angeles' controversial prohibition on retail pot shops is now officially on hold unless the signatures or proper paperwork were deficient.

Organizers turned in ...

... 49,020 signatures at about 9:30 a.m., a City Clerk's official told the Weekly.

@nemsfyl

They only needed 27,425 registered L.A. city voters to support putting the matter on the ballot. The ban was scheduled to take effect Wednesday.

Looks like that's not going to happen.

As long as their paperwork was in order and the number of signatures seems reasonable, the ordinance will be halted today, according to the City Attorney's office.

A City Clerk's official who could verify that the paperwork was straight wasn't available when we called.

Once the signatures are fully verified, which could take days, the City Council will have 30 days to either overturn the ban themselves or put the matter before voters as soon as possible.

L.A. city Councilman Jose Huizar last night harshed your mellow, however, by warning that even without the ban the city could close shops because, he says, they violate state law by profiting from retail weed sales.

Consider this: In parts of the San Fernando Valley police have been doing just that -- busting dispensaries simply because they have pot for sale.

We shall see.

[Update at 2:10 p.m.]: A top City Clerk's official confirms that the ban has been suspended and the signatures were given "conditional acceptance."

The next move is to have the City Clerk's office count the number of signatures and use statistical sampling to verify that they're good or bad. They have 15 days to do that. (If the sampling turns up too many bad signatures, but enough good ones to indicate supporters still might have enough of them, then they have 30 days to go through each signature).

Then the referendum heads to the City Council, which can either overturn its own ban or put the matter before voters on the first possible election date. We believe the council has 30 days to make that move.

In the meantime legit dispensaries are free to operate. Sort of. (See Councilman Jose Huizar's comments, above).

[@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]

Tags:

City Clerk, dispensary ban, marijuana, pot shops, referendum

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Adrianna Parnagian

Yay

HELPERNOW

the secular state is our criminal law system ! its not civil law thats the deception its in fact roman saturni laws,,clever hide...,add to that slve is in latin non men,,meaning your name,aka name ! on birth certificate and on rolls...and other evil ancient codes rules,,and admiralty and maritme code ucc...sea of souls as cargo as slaves,,roman catholic laws medieval ones...,temple bar,the bar....,the templars women sacrifices made this one....and much much more all secular,all illegal not of clean light..

bakerbeats

Thetirade-Yeah-that's me-Your camping up north -Yes? I've been wondering when someone would pick up my comments-I shuda used one of my various monickers! Hope your having fun!

bakerbeats

Here in L.A. we might have a different situation going on-(my street creds go back 50 yrs. with the herb) Yeah -we voted Prop.215 in-with a the idea that it was a good idea-collectives sharing the bounty of their efforts-Yeah right-took awhile tho for the opportunist -(not to sound socially incorrect) Ruski-Armenian-Latino-Anglo-Bandidos to get hip to the open range -"Medical -Mj." boom-"Natural Medicine"? Brother-! Most(not all) of what your buying is NOT NATURAL any more! Herb grown under lites-indoors-hydro-ponic-constant stess of lites-CO2 etc. is not natural-Here in L.A. we need to weed out the the exploiters and be able to provide truly organic grown Herb like it was meant to be-The best way is my friends is to grow your own!And please don't comment back how difficult it is-It's not-For those that don't have a place to grow get together with your peers and see if someone amongst you have a place to grow and start a true collective -If you can't put this together then you should have access to a REGULATED PROVIDER -who can assure you that what you are ingesting(smoke-oil-candy etc.) is not tainted-I myself, believe that we should be able to grow the Herb on our roof tops if we choose to-but, that's not the way it is-So, for the time being, work with what we have-Here in Cali. the legal State laws are as about as loose as you can get-OZ. in in your pocket-doobie in your mouth-smoke in public-An Infraction-(parking ticket)Send in the fine-that's it-What do YOU think?

Adam Ferrell

Thank you Tara, and other signatorie

clark_bennett

Should be sold through pharmacies not dispensaries . I know there are problems with that too, but if it is being sold as medicine it should be treated as medicine. Otherwise just legalize it and sell it at supermarkets the same as alcohol and cigarettes.

Duncan20903

@clark_bennett yours is a lame argument of form over substance. Would you really deprive the seriously ill their medicine rather than see that medicine distributed by a dispensary? Let's not play stupid games with you noting that a significant percentage of those who frequent dispensaries are malingering. Even if we go with 90% fitting that description that leaves 10s and 10s of thousands of seriously ill Californians that benefit from the existence of dispensaries. If you think the malingering wouldn't get their pot anyway you're delusional.

clark_bennett

@Duncan20903 You didn't even read my post did you? You looked at the first sentence then stopped, imagined an adversary, concocted an argument and responded to your own argument. Yismail made an informed response, that it would have to removed from the schedule one category and the local pharmacist would have to be educated about different strains and there effects. Budsandroses response while wildly paranoid was at least civil. I can't even say you attacked me, because you didn't even respond to what I wrote.

yismail

@clark_bennett It can't be sold in pharmacies until it is removed from schedual one. And frankly the pill counters at your local pharmacy wouldn't know the first thing about the hundreds of different strains or their effects.

budsandroses

@clark_bennett All pharmaceuticals are toxic and kill people, every year. Cannabis does not. A pharmacist is unnecessary. A pharmacist will distribute synthetic cannabinoids like Marinol. They are working on the patents. Some people will prefer synthetic cannabinoids in a pill form, most won't. The pharmaceuticals will have dangerous side effects, and could kill you. They will be toxic.