Pubdate: Thu, 13 Mar 2014
Source: LA Weekly (CA)
Copyright: 2014 Village Voice Media
Contact: http://www.laweekly.com/feedback/EmailAnEmployee?department=letters
Website: http://www.laweekly.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/228
Author: Dennis Romero

RECORD HIGH 1,140 WEED SHOPS STILL OPERATE IN L.A. DESPITE BAN

Last year Los Angeles voters essentially outlawed all marijuana
dispensaries in town. Prop. D, which passed 62 percent in favor to 37
percent opposed, grants limited immunity to the 135 or fewer legit
weed stores still standing following a 2007 City Council moratorium on
pot sellers.

As we've said, that leaves about 90 percent or so of our town's pot
shops eligible to be closed down. And the L.A. City Attorney's office
and LAPD say they've been making headway.

Well, not so fast:

The city Office of Finance, in declaring this week that it has
collected $8.6 million in business taxes from self-proclaimed medical
marijuana collectives since April 18, 2011, noted the number of said
shops paying tribute to the fine people of Los Angeles today is ...
1,140.

Yep. That's the largest number of active dispensaries counted by the
city that we've ever seen, and it's more than double the 545 shops LA
Weekly counted in 2009 when the city began trying to regulate the
places in earnest. (The city itself back then asked for our list to
use as the basis for its own accounting).

And it's also much more than the woefully low 472 shops a UCLA count
turned up in 2012. The number is even higher than the 1,046 counted by
the city in the summer of 2012, before the ban represented by Prop.
D.

Despite numerous crackdowns, including a declaration this week from
City Attorney Mike Feuer that more than 100 shops have closed their
doors since L.A. authorities began enforcement measures against D
non-compliant businesses, 1,140 appears to be a historic number.

It's quite possible that as some shops have closed their doors in the
face of lawsuits and criminal action by the City Attorney's office
(some operators and landlords have been convicted or have settled with
the city), others have opened up.

It's clear that it would take extraordinary resources to close all the
shops in town by force, and this week Feuer tried to use the threat of
court to get dispensaries to shut down voluntarily. The City
Attorney's office said in a statement that Feuer has ...

.filed criminal charges against hundreds of defendants including
dispensary owners, operators, managers and property owners.

. It is important when renting property to a medical marijuana
business to verify that requirements have been met under Proposition
D.

Interestingly, Feuer told us in an interview last month that "we don't
have a list" when it comes to the number of working
dispensaries:

In order for us to know with certainty we have to look at each one.
We're working closely with neighborhood councils, police, and Building
and Safety to identify those illegal dispensaries and to take steps to
have them go out of business.

His office told us last night, however, that it has used the Office of
Finance's list of taxpaying dispensaries to send out letters to 850
dispensaries warning them that non-compliant stores would be taken to
court.

The City Attorney's folks questioned just how current the finance list
is, and it suggested that shops that have closed up under the Prop. D
crackdown might not be showing up on finance's radar.

Here's what finance general manager Antoinette Christovale told us:
The Office of Finance has issued 1,400 business tax registration
certificates under the L050 [marijuana collective] tax category.
However, approximately 1,140 are currently active. 
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D