Los Angeles to cap number of dispensaries at 70

The Los Angeles City Council took several key steps Tuesday toward completing an ordinance that would regulate the city’s multiplying medical marijuana dispensaries, voting to sharply limit the number and location of stores.

The council voted to allow 70 dispensaries. But it also decided to allow those dispensaries that had registered with the city and are still open in their original locations to continue to operate. The city attorney’s office put the number at 137. The cap would take effect only if the number of dispensaries dropped to 70.

In a final bid to clamp down, the council also tightened the location restrictions, deciding that dispensaries will not be allowed within 1,000 feet of schools, parks, libraries, residences or sites with other so-called sensitive uses. Supporters of that restriction said it was critical to protect neighborhoods, but opponents and dispensary operators insisted that it would eliminate most locations in Los Angeles, where commercial strips are often next to houses.

The only other city among the state’s 10 largest to impose a cap is Oakland, which has less than one-tenth the population of Los Angeles and allows four dispensaries. Those operations have become extremely successful, splitting about $20 million a year in sales. Berkeley, with a population of 107,000, allows three shops; Palm Springs, population 47,600, two; West Hollywood, population 37,000, four; and Sebastopol, population 7,700, two.

Well, this should be interesting.  First, you’ve got around 800 dispensaries now and you’re going to trim that down to the remaining 137 that had jumped through all the right hoops originally.  I’ve never seen a major American city attempt to close over 600 businesses before.  I wonder what that does to the employment figures, tax revenues, and local economies?  I wonder whether a dispensary owner forced to close his doors picks up a different line of work or just keeps doing what he’s doing on the down low, not paying taxes and subverting any meaningful regulations LA will place upon the remaining dispensaries?  I guess we’ll find out.

Second, LA’s going to whittle down the 137 to 70 or lower with the 1000′ distance restriction.  I’m not sure why prescription drugs and liquor can be sold near residences, schools, parks, and libraries, but medical marijuana can’t.  Below I’ve taken four quick snapshots in Google Earth where I’ve mapped out the locations of schools, liquor stores, pharmacies, and nightclubs.  There are also plenty of parks, libraries, and residences in these pictures, but I didn’t bother to label them:

So how is it that liquor and pharmaceuticals sold in well-regulated businesses that require adult ID don’t frighten us when they’re near residences, schools, parks, and libraries, but non-toxic medical marijuana in the same locations is something to be regulated out of existence?