NEWS: LA Pot Shops Not Going Gently Into the Night

After an ordinance was passed last January to better regulate Los Angeles's Pot Shop scene, hundreds of marijuana dispensaries have until June 7 to close up shop. But, many of the dispensaries' owner aren't willing to put down the bud and go quietly, and now the city is facing some stubborn stoners.

As we all know, a 1996 California law allows those who are “sick” or in “pain” to use marijuana and get it through dispensaries. San Francisco and other cities in California enacted laws to regulate the dispensaries and limit the number of them, but that didn’t happen in Los Angeles. Now, there an estimated 600 dispensaries in the city—too many according to some city residents, who have complained that the pot shops have created a public nuisance, which lead to the January ordinance.

Of the 600 or pot shops, 439 received letters from the city attorney ordering them to shut down by June 7 when the ordinance takes effect. Eric Stein, the co-owner of one dispensary being ordered to close, said the city shouldn’t interfere with the nascent, and lucrative, industry, especially during a recession. Marijuana sales bring in between $58 and $105 million each year in sales tax revenue to the broke-ass state of California.

Still, city officials are hoping most shops will go without a fight, as the state of California doesn’t have a ton of spare cash for drawn-out legal battles. Asha Greenberg, an assistant city prosecutor overseeing the closure of the shops says, “We’re hoping for voluntary compliance. We’re hoping not to prosecute 439 dispensaries.”

Source: BlackBook Magazine