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6:15am | As the Long Beach City Council has inched towards passing an ordinance regulating local medical marijuana businesses, some local collectives worry that the tables are being shifted in a direction that leads to unnecessary regulation akin to a recent ordinance passed by the City of Los Angeles.

Long Beach lobbyist Carl Kemp of the Kemp Group – who represents about ten local medpot dispensaries – says that supporters of medical marijuana collectives have not been allowed ample discussion and presentation time in front of the City Council. 

His beliefs stem mainly from Mayor Bob Foster’s decision to offer public speakers on the issue two minutes to address the Council, instead of the normal three minutes, because that particular City Council meeting was running long. In addition, Kemp said Thursday, the Mayor’s office invited Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley – notorious for his hard stance against medical marijuana dispensaries – to address the Council during their upcoming Tuesday meeting.

Kemp made numerous attempts to secure equal time for a presentation, but had not heard back from the Mayor’s office with a response. 

“You give [Cooley’s office] a platform to make their argument before a vote, and you don’t give anyone else the opportunity to give a counterpoint?” Kemp says. “That flies in the face of democracy, and it flies in the face of this argument that you’re trying to make sure that things are done right. You’re trying to make sure, in my view, that these things are done in the most restrictive way, and all but eliminate them from being in this city, when you’ve already agreed that they are medicine.”

In Kemp’s eyes, both moves could slow momentum that seemed to be leaning toward the approval of an ordinance that both the City and medical marijuana dispensaries agreed on. Restricting the allotted public speaking time and inviting an outside legal opinion are a hindrance, he says, to the hard work that has already gone into crafting a very intricate ordinance that seems to hold a majority Council vote to approve.

Taylor Honrath, a legislative aide to Mayor Foster, said that next Tuesday’s presentation would be made by staff from Cooley’s office and not the District Attorney himself, and that the intention is not to shift the Council’s decision one way or another but simply to share similar experiences with crafting an ordinance in Los Angeles and how it relates to the process in Long Beach. 

Long Beach’s proposed ordinance is viewed as more collective-friendly than the one adopted by Los Angeles just a few weeks ago. Some collectives have threatened to sue Los Angeles for being too restrictive. In the past, District Attorney Cooley has promised to specifically target marijuana dispensaries for prosecution and publicly pleaded with the Los Angeles City Council to ban all sales.

“Their experiences with regulation, I imagine, will be part of the discussion and how Long Beach fits into the County,” Honrath said. “The District Attorney’s office isn’t coming in here to deliver an anti-collective message.”

Honrath said that the exact meeting agenda had not yet been finalized, but that worries from Kemp and his collective clients were unnecessary. The presentation from Cooley’s staff will not represent either viewpoint, he says.

Kemp says that he believes the City Council has been “extremely progressive” with their willingness to work fairly with medical marijuana dispensaries on several key issues. While there are several areas that he believes could be improved upon, Kemp said that overall his clients are pleased with the ordinance that has been crafted and seems close to Council approval.

The City Council was scheduled to issue a final vote on the ordinance during last Tuesday’s meeting, but the Mayor delayed the vote by one week, expressing concerns that dispensaries would not be required to grow their own marijuana on their property or purchase it within city limits – even though the City Council voted 5-4 the week prior not to regulate purchasing restrictions.

Foster says that the city may be making itself vulnerable by allowing dispensaries to purchase their marijuana from anywhere without restriction. But Kemp says that forcing them to grow on their own property would be near impossible with the water and heating demands that the plants require. 

“If I were a property owner in Long Beach, I wouldn’t want medical marijuana grown in my property,” Kemp says. “Not because of any philosophical view, but because of what it might do to my building.”

In addition, Kemp says, requiring marijuana to be locally grown creates a safety risk because such places are commonly broken into. He expressed concern that those opposed to the ordinance had been proposing more restrictions in recent weeks, capped off by the Mayor postponing a final Council vote by one week in order to allow the office of a famously opinionated District Attorney to make a presentation.

Kemp says he understands the concern that Mexican drug cartels could benefit by selling marijuana to the dispensaries, but proposes that the ordinance include a regulation that they must purchase the product within the state of California and not specifically in Long Beach.

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