MONROVIA, CA - Spurred by two fatal shootings last week at separate medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles, Supervisor Michael Antonovich will call Tuesday for a ban on pot clinics in unincorporated areas, his office said.
Dispensary robberies in which one man was gunned down and another wounded in Echo Park and another man was fatally shot in Hollywood on Thursday convinced Antonovich to call for an outright ban of medical marijuana outlets, said Paul Novak, his planning deputy.
"The supervisor has had a concern about these for years," Novak said. "The recent events...only heighten that concern."
Marijuana dispensaries are currently free to open in unincorporated parts of the county, which requires only that owners obtain a conditional use permit to operate.
The county's Regional Planning Commission, which issues the conditional use permits, was closed Friday and unavailable to provide the number of medical marijuana dispensaries currently operating in the county.
Antonovich plans to introduce a motion at the supervisors' meeting Tuesday asking staff to draft an ordinance that would prohibit dispensaries from opening anywhere in unincorporated areas, Novak said.
This month, Los Angeles city officials began enforcing a new ordinance that restricts dispensaries from being near schools and parks, forcing more than 400 clinics to close. About 130 dispensaries that opened before the city imposed a moratorium in 2007 can stay open.
At one point, city prosecutors estimated that at least 700 marijuana dispensaries were operating in Los Angeles.
County officials worry that, without a moratorium and restrictions on where they can open, many of those closed L.A. shops will find new homes in unincorporated areas, Novak said.
Like Los Angeles, a growing number of cities in the county have banned or have imposed zoning restrictions on marijuana dispensaries, he noted.
"It should be consistent (from) one jurisdiction to the next. Otherwise, we will get flooded in our county unincorporated areas," he said.
Officials in La Puente, which has more marijuana dispensaries than any other city in the San Gabriel Valley, have been wrangling over the issue since February. Recently, officials put plans to ban dispensaries on hold.
Source: Pasadena Star-News
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