How we got here!

Over two years ago the City of Los Angeles found itself with too many medical marijuana collectives opening close to schools, churches and other sensitive use areas, as well as too many collectives clustered to close to one another. At that time it was estimated 500 to 800 collectives had opened in the City without guidance from the City Council. Citizens started to complain that there were too many collectives opening close to sensitive areas and demanded that the city regulate them.

The City Council chose to do a registration process for the current collectives and to put into place an emergency procedure called an Interim Control Ordinance (ICO). The City required all collectives to register with the City Clerk that they are a medical marijuana collective; and they must also provide copies of their business license, insurance, and a lease that stated they are a medical marijuana collective. Out of the 500 to 800 estimated collectives only 186 had registered by the deadline (Nov. xx of 2007). The ICO put a ban on any new collectives from opening for 45days allowing the Council time to create an ordinance for collectives. After the 45 days the city was allowed by state law to continue the ICO by properly extending the moratorium through 2 extensions for a total of 2 years. The ICO contained a provision to allow collectives to open by filing a hardship exemption. This loop-hole allowed for the collectives to again swell up to 550 collectives.

The City is now stating that the hardship exemption did not allow collectives to open but instead was just an application to be approved or disapproved at a later time. To the contrary, if you were to ask the city clerk or any other city officials on how to open a collective, you were told that all you needed to do is register with the city by filing a hardship exemption. The hardship exemption was poorly crafted by the City, because it had no criteria listed as to what is necessary to qualify as a hardship. This created a large loop-hole, because any reason would qualify as a valid reason. It is not the fault of the collectives who chose to use the loop-hole provided by the exemption to open.