Los Angeles city officials proposed guidelines for regulating marijuana businesses and recreational weed sales Thursday in anticipation of cannabis becoming legal across California in 2018.
Retail marijuana dispensaries would be limited to Los Angeles’ commercial and industrial zones and prohibited from operating within 800 feet of schools, libraries, parks, substance abuse treatment centers and other pot shops after the statewide legalization of cannabis takes effect Jan. 1, should the city adopts the draft rules proposed Thursday.
Other marijuana businesses, including indoor growing facilities, would be restricted to the city’s industrial zones and subject to audits and inspections, among additional requirements, according to the proposal.
“I’m calling on all residents and stakeholders to provide comments and feedback on the draft documents to ensure the pending regulations are inclusive of all communities,” Los Angeles City Council President Herb Wesson said Thursday.
A 60-day window for comments will allow a “healthy debate of Los Angeles’ growing cannabis industry prior to final recommendations being considered by the City Council,” added Mr. Wesson, a Democrat.
Californians passed Proposition 64 in November, granting adults 21 and over the right to legally grow, possess and use marijuana for non-medical purposes within the state, in addition to letting licensed dispensaries sell non-medical marijuana beginning 2018.
Existing law limits the number of marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles to 135, however, and has left lawmakers to consider proposals for reining in that restriction and establishing a citywide framework for regulating the local cannabis industry.
This week’s proposal signals “a crucial step in the city’s effort to prepare for the Jan. 1 statewide legalization of cannabis and, more specifically, to help us create a clear and enforceable set of regulations here in Los Angeles,” Democratic Councilman Paul Koretz said Thursday, the Los Angeles Times reported.
“Voters called upon us to prepare our city to enter this brave new world of legal marijuana,” Democratic Councilman Bob Blumenfield said in a statement of his own Thursday. “As the largest city to regulate marijuana, we will be the blueprint for the rest of the nation.”
California became the first state in the country to legalize medical marijuana in 1996, defying the federal government’s still-standing prohibition against cannabis. Twenty-eight other states and D.C. have since followed suit. Last year, meanwhile, voters in California, Massachusetts, Nevada and Maine approved ballot measures legalizing recreational marijuana, joining the ranks of a handful of states with legal weed.
About 4 million people reside around Los Angeles, easily making the city the nation’s largest marijuana market once retail sales begin. Indeed, previous estimates have suggested California stands to generate $1.6 billion in marijuana sales during just the first year of legalization, and $6.46 billion by the decade’s end.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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