Pubdate: Mon, 16 Nov 2009
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Page: A3
Copyright: 2009 Los Angeles Times
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/bc7El3Yo
Website: http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: John Hoeffel
Cited: Americans for Safe Access http://www.americansforsafeaccess.org
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/dispensaries
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?253 (Cannabis - Medicinal - United States)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Steve+Cooley

A MEDICAL MARIJUANA SUCCESS STORY

West Hollywood Enforces a Strict Ordinance and Eliminates the Drama 
That Plagues L.A.

A few miles from Los Angeles City Hall, a small experiment in 
marijuana regulation has been underway for years. While the state's 
largest city passed a flawed moratorium, failed to enforce it, 
debated proposed rules endlessly and watched flummoxed as 
dispensaries multiplied, West Hollywood pressed ahead.

Confronted with its own dispensary explosion in 2005, the city 
surrounded by L.A. imposed a moratorium on dispensaries, clamped 
interim rules on the ones that were open, passed a strict ordinance 
and capped the number allowed at four, all within two years.

When the West Hollywood City Council updated its ordinance earlier 
this month, the vote was unanimous, no residents spoke in opposition 
and the city's dispensary operators lined up in support.

Today, in contrast, two Los Angeles council committees will hold what 
is sure to be a boisterously contentious hearing as they try to 
finish an ordinance now in its fifth draft.

In West Hollywood, city officials say, it's been more than two years 
since a resident has complained about a dispensary. Neighborhood 
watch leaders say their streets are safer because the dispensary 
guards are required to walk nearby blocks. School officials welcome 
dispensaries as neighbors. And the L.A. County Sheriff's Department, 
which patrols the city, says there have been no recent crimes at 
dispensaries and no calls from agitated neighbors.

"We've been on top of this from Day 1," said Lisa Belsanti, a senior 
management analyst with the city who helped draw up its rules. 
"There's a problem, but it's in Los Angeles, it's not in West Hollywood."

Cities with no medical marijuana regulations, including Los Angeles, 
San Diego and Long Beach, have seen an outcry from neighborhoods 
upset that dispensaries open wherever they want, often in close 
proximity, and attract nuisances, such as traffic, and real dangers, 
such as robberies.

But some cities, notably San Francisco and Oakland, have tightly 
regulated their dispensaries, and officials there say they have had 
little or no trouble with them.

Although at 1.9 square miles and about 36,000 people West Hollywood 
is a fraction of L.A.'s size, it offers an example of how a city that 
adopted rules and enforced them has largely eliminated its problems.

"We've kept them on a short leash," said City Councilman John Duran, 
who has been involved with medical marijuana issues for years. 
"Today, we have minimal complaints, and they are acting responsibly."

West Hollywood -- with its large population of gays and seniors and 
its pride in its progressive politics -- welcomed medical marijuana 
as word spread that it can help AIDS patients and glaucoma sufferers. 
But it too experienced a neighborhood backlash as the number of 
dispensaries started to climb in 2004 and 2005.

Three appeared within a block of Fountain Day School. One, the 
Farmacy, was around the corner. Its customers lit up in a parking lot 
shared with the private school, upsetting parents.

"All of a sudden they started opening up boom, boom, boom, boom, 
boom," said Andrew Rakos, the school's general manager. "Our parent 
organization came to me and said we're not happy about this. There 
was an immediate influx of a lot of unsavory people."

The Farmacy is run by a pharmacist, JoAnna LaForce, who has treated 
critically ill patients with marijuana for more than 15 years. She 
contacted the school's parent organization, offered tours of her 
store, hired security and banned smoking in the parking lot. The 
Farmacy, like the other dispensaries, belongs to the chamber of 
commerce and its manager serves on a community advisory board.

"We're just part of the community, a part of the neighborhood. They 
don't see us as a risk," said LaForce, who has watched the situation 
in Los Angeles with dismay. She also has Farmacy dispensaries in 
Venice and Westwood that followed the rules to operate under the 
city's moratorium.

Rakos is now one of the Farmacy's most valuable supporters. Because 
it was within 500 feet of the school, the city wanted the Farmacy to 
move by the end of the year. But Rakos asked the City Council to make 
an exception, and it did. "We felt that it was important for the city 
to know that there are some businesses that are not only respectful, 
but listened to the needs of the community," he said.

In Los Angeles, a controversial draft ordinance has ping-ponged 
between the council and the city attorney's office. Neighborhood 
activists and dispensary operators have been largely excluded, except 
to speak at public hearings. West Hollywood officials, however, 
worked closely with residents, dispensary owners and the Sheriff's Department.

The West Hollywood ordinance restricts where dispensaries can open, 
sets security requirements, limits hours and bans on-site 
consumption. It goes further than the proposed Los Angeles ordinance 
to ensure dispensaries are responsible neighbors.

The dispensaries must provide nearby residents with the name and 
phone number of a contact person. To discourage robberies, 
dispensaries must deposit each day's cash. Security guards have to 
patrol a two-block radius to prevent loitering and smoking, and 
guards must be unarmed. "We don't want the wild, wild West shootouts 
over marijuana and cash," Duran said.

The city also requires the dispensary operators to meet regularly 
with city officials to discuss problems. Those meetings are now very 
short. "We go in there for 10 minutes," LaForce said, "and they say 
- -- the sheriffs in there -- any problems? No. Any concerns? No."

City officials were alarmed recently when Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley 
said he believed most dispensaries were illegal and threatened to 
prosecute them. But Sheriff Lee Baca, who has advised cities to ban 
dispensaries, said he considers West Hollywood a model and even 
suggested Los Angeles adopt the same ordinance.

Baca said his deputies work closely with the city's dispensaries. "I 
know they're transparent, and I think the key is that our people can 
go in there at any time and look at their documentation," he said. 
"What we're interested in is organizations that try to blend 
commercial sales with medical sales. That's clearly illegal."

West Hollywood has four approved dispensaries, all on busy Santa 
Monica Boulevard.

Don Duncan, the area's most visible medical marijuana advocate as the 
California director for Americans for Safe Access, runs the unflashy 
Los Angeles Patients & Caregivers Group. A security guard is always 
on the sidewalk in front of the cannabis-green storefront.

"We haven't had a complaint in three years," Duncan said.

The Farmacy, unlike most outlets, leaves it door open, inviting 
passersby to check out its surf-and-Buddha-influenced vibe. 
Alternative Herbal Health Services, across the street, is more 
discreet, with a colorful sign much like those found at natural food stores.

Near the west end of town is the Zen Healing Collective, with an 
enormous neon cannabis leaf in the window.

A fifth dispensary, the Sunset Super Ship, which city officials want 
to shut down, occupies a metaphorical sweet spot on the Sunset Strip 
between the Hustler Hollywood boutique (sex) and the Whisky A Go Go 
(rock 'n' roll).

One issue still troubles some West Hollywood officials: that people 
exploit the state's medical marijuana laws to buy pot simply to get 
high or to resell. "There are a lot of people that hang around that 
look to us as undesirables, but we don't really get many complaints 
from the community," said sheriff's Lt. Dave Smith.

Duran, the councilman, believes the downside does not outweigh the 
benefit of giving truly sick people safe access to marijuana and 
creating a system that allows the city to monitor sales.

"We're the home of the Sunset Strip," he said. "We've had people 
smoking marijuana on Sunset since 1920. That's not going to change."
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake