Hearing in City's Lawsuit Against Eagle Rock Pot Shop to Resume Wednesday

A lawsuit against one of Eagle Rock’s leading medical marijuana facilities and the owners of the Colorado Boulevard property where the shop is located was sent Monday from one Los Angeles Superior Court courthouse to another, effectively delaying an expected decision over whether or not the City Attorney’s office has a case against the dispensary.

Superior Court Judge Ruth A. Kwan transferred the lawsuit against American Eagle Collective (AEC) and property owners Walter and Diane Botsch to the court of Superior Court Judge Anthony J. Mohr, according to a clerk in Kwan’s court.

In December 2010, Mohr invalidated large parts of a medical marijuana ordinance adopted by the Los Angeles City Council in January 2010, raising concerns in Eagle Rock that medical marijuana dispensaries in the neighborhood would not be bound by many key city regulations aimed at reducing the number of such facilities.

Mohr is still presiding over litigation between pot dispensaries and the City over the specifics of the ordinance.

On June 23, a week after the lawsuit against AEC was filed, Superior Court Judge Ann Jones denied a request by the City Attorney’s office to set a date for a preliminary injunction against AEC and its landlords on the grounds that the pot shop has allegedly violated city zoning codes and that the landlords had broken California health and safety codes by leasing their property to a business that deals in a controlled substance. (See the attached pdfs for details of the City’s request and the response by AEC and its landlords.)

“The court turned us down, saying it did not see any urgency because of the ordinance litigation going on, although our case did not involve the medical marijuana ordinance,” Assistant City Attorney Asha Greenberg said.

On Monday, Kwan summoned counsels for both the City and AEC into her chambers and informed them of the change in court. Both sides have been ordered to appear in Department 309 before Judge Mohr at the Central Civil West Courthouse, located downtown at 600 S. Commonwealth Ave. (Kwan’s court is at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse on 111 N. Hill St.)

Another Lawsuit Against Eagle Rock Pot Shop

In addition to AEC and its landlords, the City Attorney’s office has sued another Eagle Rock-based medical marijuana facility for violating the zoning code and posing a public nuisance. The shop, called House of Kush, is also located on Colorado Boulevard—on the thoroughfare’s eastern stretch, near Townsend Avenue.

Both AEC and House of Kush were among four marijuana facilities in Eagle Rock—which, in turn, were among 141 across the city—that were ordered last March to shut down for failing to sign up for a City lottery aimed at limiting the total number of medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles to 100. (Both AEC and House of Kush are still open—and a hearing in the lawsuit against House of Kush is scheduled in Superior Court Judge John Wiley’s court, department 86, on 111 N Hill St., on October 14.)

The twin lawsuits come at a time when cities and counties in California appear to be on the verge of getting more teeth than ever before to regulate pot shops, which have so far successfully argued that their business is protected by state law rooted in Proposition 215, which in 1996 legalized the cultivation and possession of medical marijuana by patients who have a doctor's recommendation.

The law was subsequently expanded to include the cooperative distribution of marijuana, causing considerable conflict between proponents of states' rights and those who advocate a stronger federal oversight of marijuana, which the federal government has long deemed illegal.

"We don't recognize that Prop. 215 legalized the sale of medical marijuana"—as a popular but erroneous public perception goes, said Greenberg. "If you look at the law, it does not permit the sale of marijuana—but that's a discussion we're likely to have for a long time."

Two State Bills Designed to Give Cities More Regulatory Power

On August 31, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 1300, which is scheduled to become law on January 1, 2012 and which empowers cities or local governing bodies to draft and enforce their own medical marijuana ordinances regulating the location, operation, or establishment of pot facilities.

A related bill passed by the California Senate, SB 847, calls, among other things, for medical marijuana dispensaries to be located outside a 600-foot radius of residential areas—unless a less restrictive local ordinance regulates the location of the facilities.

SB 847 was presented to the governor on September 7 and is awaiting his signature. The survival of all but a handful of the 10 medical pot shops in Eagle Rock would be threatened by SB 847 if it becomes law. (AEC is located on the corner of Colorado Boulevard and College View Avenue, which runs through a heavily residential area.)

“The good news is that in anticipation of SB 847 becoming law, the L.A. City Attorney's office has asked for information from community members regarding the proximity of medical marijuana dispensaries to schools and licensed day care or pre-school facilities so that they will have the information required to enforce against stores that are in potential violation of state and local laws,” President Michael Larsen said, adding: “The ERNC encourages everyone to be proactive in providing information to law enforcement, which might safeguard the public and it's quality of life in Eagle Rock.”

California Assemblymember Anthony Portantino (D-La Cañada-Flintridge, Assembly District 44) voted for SB 847, although he abstained from voting on AB 1300. By contrast, California Senator Carol Liu (D-La Cañada-Flintridge, Senate District 21) voted for AB 1300 but not for SB 847.

At the most recent meeting of the board of the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council on September 6, Larsen expressed his frustration at Senator Liu’s “no” vote on SB 847 on August 30.

Larsen said he had been trying in vain to arrange a face-to-face meeting with Senator Liu for the past four months. The ERNC president added that he had e-mailed the senator’s chief of staff, Suzanne Reed, in an effort to impress on her that such a meeting “would have been productive and appropriate” and that he was dumbfounded that a local politician “cannot find the time to meet with her community leaders on such an important public safety issue."