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LA City Council relaxes medical marijuana regulations

A medical marijuana dispensary in Los Angeles.
A medical marijuana dispensary in Los Angeles.
(
Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
)

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LA City Council relaxes medical marijuana regulations
LA City Council relaxes medical marijuana regulations

The Los Angeles City Council asked the City Attorney on Friday to draft language that would ease management restrictions, and pave the way for as many as 180 pot stores in the city.

The ordinance the L.A. City Council approved earlier this year restricted the number of pot dispensaries to about 180.

But they must have kept the same management for the past three years. That provision disqualified all but 40 of the stores because most had undergone some form of management change.

Now the council says it’s willing to allow these medical marijuana dispensaries to remain open if they’re “still owned, in whole or in part by at least one of the owners” it identified when it first registered with the city. The stores may also remain open if they meet other criteria, including registration as a California non-profit corporation.

Medical marijuana activists hailed the move.

It means L.A. will end up with as many as 180 pot stores — still far fewer than the nearly 1,000 that had cropped up before the city council cracked down.

KPCC wire services contributed to this story.

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