LOS ANGELES - A union of medical-marijuana workers in this city is betting on a smaller, but healthier, pot-dispensary business. The United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770 backed Proposition D, the Medical Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Ordinance, which passed with 63% of the vote in citywide balloting last month. That measure would ban all medical-marijuana businesses except for about 135 more-established shops, several of which employ UFCW-organized workers. More than 600 medical-marijuana workers in Los Angeles have joined the UFCW since it organized its first cannabis members locally last year. The union believes Prop D will secure those workers' jobs, which provide relatively good wages and health benefits, by effectively weeding out hundreds of newer storefronts that have sprouted up in recent years. [continues 705 words]
LOS ANGELES-The City Council voted to repeal its own recent ban on storefront medical-marijuana dispensaries, an about-face that left as many as 1,000 pot shops all but unregulated as officials try to get a handle on a massive legal gray area. Faced with a rapidly growing number of storefront "collectives" distributing the drug for ostensibly medicinal uses-and ensuing complaints from neighbors-the council this past July unanimously modified the municipal code to effectively outlaw such dispensaries. But medical-marijuana activists quickly forced a referendum seeking to overturn the ordinance by collecting signatures from 50,000 residents opposed to the ban. [continues 300 words]
