When Darcy Hughes opened her Westwood marijuana dispensary B. Green, she never imagined she’d be shutting its doors a mere three years later.
“It’s a difficult situation,” Hughes said. “I’ve watched a bunch of dispensaries open and then get taken away.”
Enforcing an ordinance passed by the Los Angeles City Council about four months ago, the city attorney’s office sent letters on May 4 to 439 L.A. area dispensaries commanding them to shut down by June 7.
The ordinance prohibits dispensaries from setting up shop near residential areas and demands that distributors test their drugs in a lab. It also calls for the closure of all dispensaries that did not register with the city prior to 2007, said Frank Mateljan, a spokesman for the city attorney.
According to Mateljan, only about 150 L.A. shops meet the ordinance’s guidelines; letters were sent to the hundreds of others after the Los Angeles Police Department and complaints from community members identified them as violating the legislation.
“We’ll be closing on June 2,” said Lev Goukassian, manager of Nirvana dispensary on Westwood Boulevard, after receiving his letter. “I’ve never been so nervous in my life. There’s nothing I can do.”
Susan Leahy manages the Farmacy on Gayley Avenue, the only Westwood dispensary allowed to operate under the ordinance. She said many shops did not register with the city before 2007 and vend smuggled cartel drugs from Mexico, justifying the city’s demands that these stores shut down.
“Those shopowners need to realize that when they opened up, they were illegal operations,” Leahy said. “I feel bad, and I’m sure they had lots invested (in their businesses), yet I opened mine in a legal way but have been penalized businesswise because they’re able to do business without jumping through the hoops that I did.”
Jumping through hoops is common in L.A. marijuana legislation. “Illegal” shops have been able to remain operating in the past thanks to litigation, weak enforcement of marijuana laws, and protests at city council meetings, Hughes said.
However, as Hughes noted, last week’s wave of letters leaves most dispensaries with few escape routes and little willpower.
Mateljan said the city attorney’s office hasn’t received any complaints or challenges to the letters as of yet.
“It’s in the city’s power to regulate these collectives, and we’re confident the ordinance can stand up to any legal challenge,” he said.
These potential legal challenges from the dispensaries include arguments that the ordinance violates consumer rights. Hughes said the legislation’s dispensary closures make it more difficult for medical marijuana patients to obtain their drug than those who use Vicodin or opiates, which is unfair and discriminatory.
Former UCLA Public Policy professor Michael Dukakis said that he agrees with the city attorney’s actions, adding that the Food and Drug Administration’s clinical test results have the sole power to determine a drug’s medicinal merit and legality to be distributed.
“Opiates and other addicting substances can be used for medical purposes because they have been subjected to the requirements of federal law,” Dukakis said. “If the advocates of medical marijuana believe that it has medicinal value, they should follow the same procedure.”
Regardless of its principles’ legality, it’s clear that the ordinance and its recent enforcement will generate crowding at the remaining L.A. dispensaries.
“There are going to be lines (after the closures),” Hughes said. “That’s not the kind of patient care I’d like to give.”