California Marijuana Dispensaries

October 9, 2010

Los Angeles medical marijuana dispensaries must fight for survival

NPR recently asked how many pot clinics will survive the crackdown? Our Los Angeles marijuana dispensary lawyers believe the answer will be determined by how many are willing to fight.

The CANNABIS LAW GROUP is representing more than a dozen marijuana collectives and dispensaries in Los Angeles and the surrounding area. By joining forces, we will stand the best chance of prevailing against the ill-conceived and poorly executed ordinances being enacted by city and county politicians.

Just this week, we reported on our Marijuana Lawyer Blog that a judge ordered a halt to the city’s attempt to hold a landlord criminally responsible for renting to a marijuana dispensary on the city’s list of illegally operating businesses. The dispensary, like many of the more than 400 ordered to close in the wake of the city ordinance, is appealing the city’s actions. The judge issued the restraining order pending the outcome of those appeals.

NPR said the city crackdown began in April with 800 operating dispensaries. The city’s goal was to have between 70 and 180 operating shops. However, the truth is no one really knows how many were operating because the city’s approval process was an utter disaster and many shops never bothered to register. And the number of shops that meet current city guidelines is well below 70 — so low in fact that the city returned to court and has asked a judge to sanction its craziness before it attempts to force so many legitimate businesses out of business. Presumably, the city feels a ruling in its favor will help shield it from the flood of civil suits that will follow.

Only 41 make the grade according to the city’s new ordinance — largely because of a clause that disqualifies those who have undergone a change in management since registering with the city prior to 2007.

Our Los Angeles marijuana dispensary attorneys are virtually certain that the ultimate number will be much higher than 41 — the ordinance itself calls for a lottery system that would add about 30 dispensaries. The difference between remaining open and being forced to close for good could very well be whether or not you are prepared to fight for your legal rights.
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October 6, 2010

Private grow rooms more popular as California cities push to ban medical marijuana dispensaries

By Cannabis Law Group

Perhaps Los Angeles city officials should tour the Costa Mesa home of Joanne Clarke, where her daughter’s old bedroom has been turned into a high-tech grow room that produces various strains of medical marijuana.

What city leaders hope to accomplish by forcing the closure of more than 400 medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles is uncertain. Certainly it will not end the use of medical marijuana. In all likelihood, the only tangible result will be to force the growth and sale of medicinal marijuana back underground, where the city will be unable to regulate it or tax it. In fact, by destroying marijuana’s retail infrastructure through the forced closure of collectives, the city stands to lose millions in tax revenue if Proposition 19 passes.

Many patients who need medical marijuana for legitimate medical purposes will be inconvenienced if not outright denied their medicine. Some will sue, and win or lose they will cost the city millions in legal fees. Others, like Joanne Clarke, will rely upon home-grown marijuana and the burgeoning business that teaches patients how to grow their own weed, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The Costa Mesa woman and her husband recently transformed their daughter’s old room into a grow room. Businesses like Otherside Farms and Golden State Greenery specialize in assisting residents in starting a grow room. As the legal marijuana industry has come under increasing fire, it has seen a quiet, steady growth in such small-scale growing operations.

Chadd McKeen, who started Otherside Farms in Orange County, told The Times that his clientele is the “embroidered-sweater-wearing, lighthouse-poster-hanging” pot smoker who is 50- to 60-years old. “That is what the marijuana users look like,” he says.

Most of the grow rooms are installed in spare bedrooms, which he typically divides in half to create “veg” room for growing and a “bloom room,” where a change in lighting and temperature encourage blooming. The rooms generally cost about $15,000.

Others are simply taking advantage of Southern California weather, which is conducive to growing marijuana — plant in the spring and harvest in the fall.
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October 6, 2010

Collectives, dispensaries and patients sue Long Beach over city’s marijuana ordinance

By Cannabis Law Group

The fight over Long Beach’s marijuana law is heating up as collectives and patients have lined up to sue the city, according to the Contra Costa Times.

Our Long Beach marijuana dispensary lawyers and Los Angeles marijuana collective attorneys are representing more than a dozen legal marijuana businesses in Los Angeles and the surrounding area. The CANNABIS LAW GROUP believes there is strength in numbers and offers confidential appointments to businesses and patients who have been harmed by restrictive marijuana ordinances enacted by city or county officials.

In the last six weeks, five marijuana collectives and two disabled marijuana patients have sued the city over its medical marijuana law, which attempts to restrict the number and location of collectives.

The collectives are asking a Los Angeles Superior Court judge to declare the restrictive city ordinance unconstitutional and to bar it from shutting down collectives. Two of the collectives are also requesting the return of nearly $15,000 in non-refundable application fees required as part of the city’s permitting process.

A city attorney acknowledged that the court has rejected requests by collectives that they be permitted to continue to operate until the court cases are resolved, which the city believes is an optimistic sign that it will ultimately prevail.

However, we recently reported that a Los Angeles judge issued a restraining order preventing the City of Los Angeles from taking legal action against landlords that rent to collectives while litigation challenging the Los Angeles ordinance is ongoing.
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October 5, 2010

Judge issues restraining order preventing city from taking action against landlord of Los Angeles marijuana dispensary

By Cannabis Law Group

A judge on Monday barred the City of Los Angeles from taking legal action against the landlord of a medical marijuana dispensary, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Los Angeles marijuana dispensary lawyers are fighting city action to force the closure of more than 400 dispensaries in accordance with the city ordinance enacted earlier this summer. The CANNABIS LAW GROUP is representing more than a dozen marijuana collectives and dispensaries in Los Angeles and the surrounding area.

The city had sought to take legal action against 45 landlords after issuing warning letters last month that they were renting to illegal dispensaries. City officials were threatening penalties, daily fines, jail time and even the loss of occupancy permits.

The judge granted a temporary restraining order this week to Natural Ways Always, a dispensary in the Palms neighborhood. While the ruling impacts only that dispensary, it should embolden landlords who had been faced with the possibility of evicting dispensaries that are in the middle of court proceedings.

In comments made by an assistant city attorney, the city seemed to be backpedaling rapidly from its stance. “We were not mandating that they take any action based on the letters,” Assistant City Attorney Asha Greenberg said. “We were just outlining what the law was in this area.”

This ruling proves that the only defense is an aggressive offense. The CANNABIS LAW GROUP believes there is strength in numbers and urges owners of marijuana dispensaries and collectives to join the fight by calling our office today for a confidential consultation to discuss your rights.
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October 2, 2010

California lawmakers prohibit marijuana dispensaries within 600 feet of public schools

By Cannabis Law Group

On the same day he signed a law that reduced marijuana possession from a misdemeanor to an infraction no more serious than a traffic ticket, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a law prohibiting marijuana dispensaries from being located within 600 feet of a school.

Our Los Angeles marijuana dispensary attorneys have frequently reported on the difficulties dispensaries have in complying with numerous state and local laws that have cropped up in an effort to regulate them to the point of near extinction. For the most part, it has been ill-conceived and poorly executed local laws and ordinances that have threatened the survival of the legal medical marijuana industry in Los Angeles and the surrounding communities.

Now the state has further restricted the industry — as the legislation backed by the California Police Chiefs Association prohibits collectives from being located within 600 feet of schools.

The real issue of whether cities and counties are permitted to enact bans was not addressed by the new law, according to Damian Nassiri of the CANNABIS LAW GROUP.

“The bill does not specifically state whether cities and counties can or cannot ban medical marijuana dispensaries outright,” Nassir wrote on his Marijuana News Blog. The laws says only that cities and counties are not prohibited from “adopting ordinances or policies that further restrict the location or establishment of a medical marijuana cooperative, collective, dispensary, operator, establishment, or provider.”

Nassiri said the wording was vague and, while it might support limiting or regulating dispensaries in a certain geographical area, it does not appear to support a total ban.

Nor does the law provide a criminal penalty for violations or address the status of existing collectives that are located with 600 feet of a school. Nassiri said a city or county may be able to sue a dispensary as a nuisance under the new law, but he did not think that a dispensary or its owners could be arrested.

One thing is certain and that is that the legal marijuana industry in Southern California is under assault and the best defense is an aggressive offense. At the CANNABIS LAW GROUP we believe everyone is entitled to an aggressive and experienced law firm and are representing more than a dozen dispensaries in Los Angeles and the surrounding areas.
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September 23, 2010

Politcians in Orange County and Los Angeles focus on medical marijuana instead of doing the real work in their communities

By Cannabis Law Group

The Los Angeles Times reports on the frustration of medical marijuana dispensaries in Orange County when it comes to attempting to get permits through the county.

With the anti-marijuana crowd screaming about the likelihood of Proposition 19 passing, the reasons are obvious: Having spent years throwing up bureaucratic roadblocks to hinder the availability of medical marijuana, they face the very real possibility of a fed-up public voting to straight-up legalize it.

Our Orange County marijuana defense attorneys reported this week on our Marijuana Lawyer Blog that Orange County supervisors failed to pass a marijuana dispensary moratorium. The move would have banned new dispensaries or those dispensaries operating without a permit — which, as it turns out, is all 11 of them, according to the Orange County Register. Only 1 dispensary is attempting to comply with the permit process.

The West County Patient Collective Assn. packed up and moved, it had been strung along by the county permitting process in a case of selective discrimination. The anti-marijuana crowd claim the businesses are taking advantage of the lack of laws governing marijuana dispensaries in the county.

This process simply should not be left to a patchwork of local legislation passed by part-time politicians. Perhaps if we could pass a rule that the issue can be taken up only by politicians who have passed a balanced budget that includes a tax cut to voters. By those with nothing better to do, in other words. Instead, we get amateur laws passed by city councils who get media publicity on a controversial topic while city finances are a mess and important issues languish without attention.

The Times reports many of the 34 cities have restricted collectives, which have moved into small unincorporated areas of the county for survival. If marijuana becomes legal in November, we are willing to bet it will be these same politicians that are eventually screaming that they are not getting their fare share of the tax revenue … having spent the better part of the last term screaming about pot smokers instead of focusing on the important issues facing their communities.
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September 22, 2010

Orange County medical marijuana dispensary moratorium goes up in smoke

By Cannabis Law Group

A proposed moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries in Orange County failed by a single vote on Tuesday as officials and residents await the outcome of the marijuana legalization measure on the November ballot.

The Orange County Register reports county supervisors were frustrated with the lack of rules governing dispensaries and are worried that passage of Proposition 19 could exacerbate the problem. In other words, some supervisors were disappointed that Orange County declined to leap into the legal thicket of creating laws and rules to hamper the legal business of supplying medical marijuana to Southern California Patients.

“This is a huge victory for medical marijuana,” said Los Angeles Attorney Damian Nassiri of the CANNABIS LAW GROUP on his Marijuana News Blog.

The proposed 45-day moratorium needed to be approved by 4 of 5 supervisors — two supervisors voted against, arguing there was no crisis and no need to ban new dispensaries or close dispensaries that were already operating. The fight is far from over: Supervisors ordered staff to come up with a new ordinance by Nov. 9 that would regulated medical marijuana collectives and provide for the possible legalization issue on Nov. 9. So again, we will have local politicians attempting to regulated businesses operating legally under state law. The county estimates 11 dispensaries currently offer medical marijuana to patients.

County Supervisor Shawn Nelson, who voted against the proposed ban, drove straight to the heart of the matter. “It seems like no one starts with well the people voted for it, how do we accommodate it? It’s always the opposite,” Nelson said. “The people voted for it. Therefore how do we exert out will and stop it.”
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September 2, 2010

Medical marijuana commerical makes history with airing in Sacramento

By Cannabis Law Group

The fight for medical marijuana rights is hitting the airwaves, Time Magazine reports.

The first-ever commercial aired on a Fox channel in Sacramento. The ad defies stereotypes by featuring a pretty young woman suffering from bone disease and a middle-aged woman who was hit by a drunk driver. Meanwhile, some parents are busy worrying about the commercial’s impact on children. Do these same children have access to the Internet? Do they ever look at a newspaper or watch the evening news?

Our Los Angeles medical marijuana lawyers continue to fight for the rights of medical marijuana patients, collectives and growers. The industry is currently under attack by a patchwork of local laws that we believe will ultimately fail to prevail against the wishes of patients and the laws of the State of California.

Cannabis is now legal for medicinal use in 14 states and is not going away. It is a proven pain killer and its advertising is just as legal as that of any prescription medication. These same parents are not hollering about Viagra commercials. And, should marijuana become legal in November, it will be another sign that it is time for the small but vocal crowd of reactionary voices to jerk their heads out of the sand before they suffocate themselves.

While Time claims that laws specifically prohibiting marijuana ads would be unlikely, we are not so sure. That is precisely what anti-dispensary ordinances do — single out one legal drug for sanctions. The fact that cigarette commercials are illegal is a prime example. Our marijuana dispensary attorneys in Los Angeles have no doubt that local and state lawmakers could busy themselves with such an issue rather than tackling the real needs of the state.
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August 21, 2010

Ruling on Anaheim marijuana ordinance a victory for patients – court avoids larger decision in battle between cities and state

By Cannabis Law Group

California medical marijuana patients won a partial victory this week with the issuance of a much anticipated ruling in a case against the City of Anaheim.

As our Riverside medical marijuana dispensary attorneys have reported on our Marijuana Lawyer Blog, many cities were awaiting this ruling before proceeding with ordinances of their own. In Riverside County alone, Wildomar is considering approving dispensaries while Riverside, Hemet, Lake Elsinore and Temecula have enacted bans.

Thus far, the courts have avoided making a decision on whether the state’s medical marijuana law trumps the ordinances put in place by various cities. Those typically utilize zoning laws and other measures to force marijuana dispensaries out of business or to prevent them from opening in the first place.

Instead, a lower court ruled that the Federal Controlled Substances Act trumps the State’s medical marijuana law. Patients appealed after an Orange County Superior Court Judge dismissed the case.

The Court of Appeals ruled this week that federal law does not trump state law — and remanded the case back to Superior Court, again without deciding the larger city versus state issue.

“The trial court erred as a matter of law in concluding federal regulation of marijuana in the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. § 812 et seq.) preempted California’s decision … to decriminalize specific medical marijuana activities under state law. We therefore reverse the judgment.”

CANNABIS LAW GROUP Attorney Damian Nassiri said it is a victory for medical marijuana rights “because it means that City’s cannot rely on federal law to ban medical marijuana dispensaries as they are creatures of the state, not federal government.”

It is not unusual in complex cases for a higher court to use outlying issues to issue a ruling on a case without addressing the core issues at hand. In this case, whether state law trumps city ordinances was not yet “ripe” for a decision because the court had an alternative legal avenue upon which to base its decision.

The Los Angeles Times reports that some had anticipated a major decision because the 4th District Court of Appeals in Santa Ana had asked for additional information and had taken a year to issue the ruling.

The Times reports that 133 cities have banned dispensaries and 99 have moratoriums. Nine counties have bans and 15 have moratoriums. Only 38 cities and nine counties allow dispensaries.
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August 15, 2010

Wildomar could join Palm Springs in permitting marijuana dispensaries in Riverside County

By Cannabis Law Group

Twenty medical marijuana dispensaries in Wildomar have filed applications since city leaders first discussed lifting a ban on the businesses, the Press Enterprise reported.

Our Riverside marijuana dispensary lawyers are dedicated to fighting for the rights of medical marijuana collectives, growers and patients. We believe these bans are a temporary obstacle thrown up by reactionary governments. State law, and the eventual legalization of marijuana (whether or not Proposition 19 passes in November) means fighting local ordinances is the best way to ensure your business survives and prospers. Our Los Angeles dispensary defense attorneys represent more than a dozen marijuana collectives in Southern California and we believe there is strength in numbers when it comes to fighting local ordinances.

Wildomar has received 20 applications in the four months since it voted to draft and ordinance making it the second city in Riverside County to allow medical marijuana dispensaries. Palm Springs also allows the legal businesses to operate in compliance with state law. Applicants include residents from Wildomar, Murrieta, Riverside, north San Diego County and Los Angeles.

The ban on dispensaries has been in place since the city incorporated in 2000. The city council is expected to revisit the issue next month.

Several former owners of Los Angeles collectives, which were forced to close when Los Angeles enacted a ban on June 7, have applied for permits in Wildomar and are shopping for homes. The owner of a delivery service has rented office space in Temecula.

One establishment is planning a dispensary and health and wellness operation that would also provide acupuncture and chiropractic services.
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