ATWATER VILLAGE—The block of Glendale Boulevard between Glenhurst Avenue and San Fernando Road—called by some as the “most mind-altering block” in Los Angeles—is facing a step towards sobriety.
Last week—after more than four years of debate—the Los Angeles City Council passed an ordinance governing medical marijuana that will force all of the dispensaries in Atwater Village to close.
”My office worked closely with Atwater Village residents who were very concerned about the proliferation of dispensaries along Glendale Boulevard,” said City Council President Eric Garcetti. “These dispensaries had submitted applications to be allowed to continue to operate and none of them were granted. The City Attorney is moving forward with the process of ensuring that operations are shut down. The intent of our new ordinance is to prevent the proliferation of dispensaries, while still allowing legitimate patients to be able to access legitimate operators.”
Courtesy: Luis Lopez
Bartan Peteronsyan, manager of L.A. Collective on Glendale Boulevard, expressed his disappointment with the ruling.
“We are going to close this shop and people are going to very sorry,” he said. “Before we came here, every hundred feet someone was selling marijuana in the street. Kids were smoking on every corner. We got everything under control. What about all the bars and liquor stores on the street? They’re doing more damage than we are.”
The new ordinance, passed Jan. 26th, gives the city of Los Angeles some of the state’s most stringent laws on medical marijuana. All dispensaries that opened after a 2007 moratorium will be forced to close. Dispensaries that were legally licensed before the moratorium will be
allowed to remain open, but many will be forced to move to new locations, because dispensaries, now, will not be allowed to operate within 1,000 feet of schools, places of worship, parks or libraries. Additionally, dispensaries can not be located with 1,000 feet of other dispensaries or across a street or alley from a residential area.
Several dispensaries in Silver Lake, which were opened and legally licensed before the 2007 moratorium, are now trying to determine if they will be able to remain open, or, if not, where they can relocate.
“We’re not sure yet if we fall within the ordinance or not,” said Leonardo Aguilera, manager of Hyperion Healing. “We’ve been looking here and there for a new location on the outskirts of the city, but it doesn’t look good. The way the ordinance is set up, they’re pushing all the dispensaries to industrial, ugly, darker areas. It [is unfortunate] for those of us that have been legal, and trying to do something positive for the medical marijuana movement. We’re going to lose a lot of our clientele if we have to move.”
Scott Crawford, co-chair of the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council expressed personal opposition to the new ordinance.
“What they’re doing is totally wrong,” Crawford said. “Commerce should dictate what’s going on. They’re moving [medical marijuana] away from places where sick people need it. Now they’re going to have to make special trips into bad neighborhoods to get their fix, and that’s not good.”
