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Pot Shop Talk: Mayor Wants City Council to Cap Dispensaries
Photo by katherine_hitt via Flickr
This week, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa commented that he believes the City Council should work to create parameters that would "limit the number of medical marijuana dispensaries in the city," according to CBS2. He believes the current count of 8-900 is too high, and talk among the Council is to aim to cap "dispensaries at between 70 and 200."The Mayor and the Council, however, could be working off an inaccurate tally, according to the LA Weekly, who have been investigating what they call "the largely unregulated nature of the city of Los Angeles' medical marijuana business." The Weekly "looked into each an every one of the more than 800 pot shops registered with City Hall and found that only 540 were actually operating."
What the Weekly is aiming to reveal is the extent to which the industry's latest crop of "retail establishments," stray from the original medical marijuana initiative, and their work may as a result indicate just how tangled a mess the City leaders are facing. In the meantime, the Council resumes talks on the issue next Wednesday; whatever ordinance they draft, Mayor Villaraigosa must issue approval for it to be implemented.
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