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We recently wrote about how L.A.’s first medical marijuana farmers market was so popular in its debut weekend that they were going to do it every weekend—but L.A. City Attorney Mike Feuer is saying not so fast on that one. He successfully obtained a temporary restraining order against the market this morning. The California Heritage Market hosted at the West Coast Collective in East L.A. drew thousands of people over the 4th of July weekend, offering medical cannabis products for sale, farmer-to-patient, to card-carrying members. No incidents were reported, and activist Cheryl Shuman even told us she greeted the police officers who dropped by and introduced them to the growers.
Feuer is now saying that the market is in violation of Proposition D, which places a limit on the number of dispensaries that can operate in the city, the L.A. Times reports. That number is 135, and Feuer has previously been occupied with shutting other pot shops down. He also called the market a public nuisance and said they did not get a proper zoning approval. Paizley Bradbury, the market's executive director, said she was told by the city's department of Building and Safety that she didn't need one.
This morning, Feuer succeeded in securing not only that temporary restraining order, CBS LA reports, but the order also makes it illegal for "card-carrying cannabis patients to meet directly with growers to purchase marijuana at the market."
Meanwhile, the market's attorney, David Welch, says that the market isn't in violation of Prop D, because West Coast Collective is one of the approved 135 dispensaries. It's not particularly clear what the difference is, in Feuer's mind, between an approved Collective selling medical marijuana inside versus in a market-style setting with growers present in a warehouse.
Maybe Feuer just doesn't like smoking of any kind. He was integral to passing the vaping ban, too.
Reason TV visited the market and showed what appears to be a lack of chaos, and even highlighted a marijuana lubricant you could buy—not that there was anyone at the market who appeared to need loosening up.
