Pinch
Well-Known Member
West Hollywood, CA - Lately West Hollywood has watched with anxiety as medical marijuana clubs proliferated here like weeds in an unkempt lot.
Mostly owned and operated by experienced dispensary operators new to the city, these clubs have become the targets of varied complaints from their new neighbors, including the city of Los Angeles' Police Department.
Since January the city council heard complaints from constituents about young men apparently dealing the drug outside their home, parked cars full of teens or tweens toking up after one returns with his successful "score" and threatening-looking toughs hanging around waiting for their friends.
The Mayor complained from the city council dais that one dispensary stationed a gun at its door just 150 feet away from a school. "That does not make me, or any parent, feel safer," then-Mayor John Duran said. "Guns escalate situations and endanger lives."
Council responded by placing an "emergency" moratorium on new cannabis dispensaries until the city could adequately regulate the seven dispensaries to which it had granted business licenses by March 2005.
Less than two months later, on May 6th, the most notoriously run of the dispensaries, Yellow House at 1209 N. La Brea Ave., was raided and shut down by the LAPD and Federal Internal Revenue Service. 800 pounds of product worth $5.1 million and between $3-500,000 cash were allegedly seized in the raid.
The Yellow House, or Compassionate Caregivers medical marijuana facility at 1209 N. La Brea Ave., West Hollywood, CA. Photo by Ryan Gierach
According to an LAPD spokesperson, the club allegedly "act[ed] just like a drug house, selling large quantities daily to middlemen street dealers...and the IRS [is investigating] money-laundering in these dispensaries that say they are "non-profit" dispensaries [but are actually] for-profit businesses."
In the aftermath of all that bad news and negative publicity, WeHoNews.com began offering to sit down with the six remaining medical marijuana dispensaries in West Hollywood to dispel rumors and pull back the veil of mystery obscuring these medical cannabis dispensaries' business practices, and perhaps by shedding sunlight on them, disperse the cloud of suspicion left hanging over them by the recent raid.
So far, three of the dispensaries granted WeHoNews.com complete access to their operations, California Cannabis Pharmaceuticals (CCP), LA Patients and Caregivers Group (LAPCG), and the Center for Compassionate Healing (CFCH).
WeHoNews.com spoke to all three of the dispensaries' owners/operators and people inside and outside the clubs who would speak openly and frankly, but only on condition of anonymity.
These three dispensaries were chosen purely because they were the first three to respond to requests for interviews and for no other reason. In next week's issue we will complete this coverage by featuring the remaining cannabis dispensaries' operations in the city.
One of the concerns most often expressed by West Hollywood residents and politicians has been that some of the clubs seem to cater to a large number of apparently youthful and healthy patrons not needing medicine of any kind, let alone for excruciating pain.
Council member Jeffrey Prang E mailed WeHoNews.com in the days after the Yellow House raid, saying, "Some of these places are just storefront drug dealers."
Later, Mr. Prang told WeHoNews.com by phone about his experience waiting for a table at a restaurant with another council member. "It was across from [one of the dispensaries] where the guards are heavily armed and wear body-armor. All we saw go in and out of the club...were healthy-looking young kids."
None of the three of the clubs WeHoNews.com visited showed much evidence of that "healthy-looking young kid" crowd, and all had far less foot traffic than the LAPD claimed that the Yellow House allegedly enjoyed — 235 a day.
Mr. Duncan decried that "whole style" of the Yellow House as too "shady, or shift, for us. We provide medicine for people," he said. "Why not do it in a professional, cheery and bright setting that people will respond well to, like an insurance office? If the stoners don't appreciate that environment, all the better."
The bright office-like setting of California Cannabis Pharmaceuticals, an example of the cheery, professional atmosphere Mr. Duncan spoke of as a deterrent to recreational users' patronage. Photo by Ryan Gierach
Precisely what the folks at California Cannabis Pharmaceuticals said about their operation. "Actually," William Malphrus, the owner of CCP said, "we were looking for some way to get the word out about how much not like the Yellow House and the other high-volume dealers down the street we are when you called." He claims to operate what he calls the only "true medical marijuana cooperative in West Hollywood."
"That's why we're a cooperative, and not a club," Mr. Malphrus said. "[Being a co-op] keeps most of the recreational users away because there's a responsibility to the co-op that comes along with joining."
Indeed, while WeHoNews.com sat with Mr. Malphrus and cohort, two men in their late-30s entered the location carrying another club's membership card and sporting a plastic case full, apparently, of documentation proving their need for medical marijuana. They wanted to make a purchase.
When told that they could obtain medicine, but only after first joining the cooperative by filling out the paperwork and then awaiting verification of their letters of recommendations, (and given that it was a Saturday afternoon, that might not take place until Monday) one of the men scoffed and said, "You're losin' out on a sale — there are half a dozen places down the street where we can buy right now." They stalked away, incredulous.
Mr. Malphus and his crew of three used the incident to stress the responsibility of community participation in cooperatively growing and obtaining the medicine, as suggested, they say, by Proposition 215, the initiative that legalized the use of marijuana for medical needs. "These guys probably came down from Ventura or someplace to make multiple buys and re-sell it all." Another abuse of the system, he said, "was buying from the black market to supply 'patients'."
Coffee and Danish service planned for cooperative members at California Cannabis Pharmacy being set up by a co-op member. Photo by Ryan Gierach
The CCP is a cooperative in the truer sense that "regular classes and workshops are given by members to members and medicine grown by members is brought to the cooperative to share with others who have grown excess for sharing," said Mr. Malphus.
But he warned that not all dispensaries acted that way — many were more like small retailers. He noted a recent phenomenon to hit the streets of West Hollywood — the 'potrepeneur' selling out of his bag up and down the city's streets.
"[Those] 'potrepeneurs' who wander the boulevard here peddling pot by the kilo," he said, "and every one of them picks up and leaves when we tell them they must first join the co-op to make a sale," Mr. Malphus told WeHoNews.com.
"They know there are clubs that will ask no questions and buy what they have — even though that is dead illegal and against Prop 215 — just down the street and they don't have to waste time with us."
The manager of the Sunset Strip's lone cannabis dispensary, Center for Compassionate Healing (CFCH), Mr. A.H. (he chose to identify himself through initials only), told WeHoNews.com that the big reason he opened in West Hollywood was the influx of "others moving into the area from outside with no real regard for the local community. I'm the only club operated by a local southern Californian, not a northern transplant."
"[Some other clubs] will sell to anyone with a letter, whether it is bogus or not," A.H. claimed, "and that does the movement for medical marijuana great harm because it makes medical marijuana a wedge in normalizing it for recreational use, decriminalizing it."
"I come from a medical background — grew up around pain specialists — and see the wonders that this medicine can work in people with chronic pain, or with deep anxiety," A.H. said.
Nor does Mr. Duncan's LAPCG allow the 'potrepeneur' to sell to his dispensary without making the individual grower become a member of the club. "They must produce a letter of recommendation, and we will verify that their doctor has it on record before allowing them into the club and to contribute product," he said. "Most 'potrepeneurs' won't jump through the hoops."
The Yellow House came under scrutiny from the IRS, and may well have heightened scrutiny of all of West Hollywood's medical marijuana dispensaries, by openly operating as a for-profit business.
Still, LAPCG, according to Mr. Duncan, is incorporated as a for-profit California Corporation, but gives all its profits to patients and charity so that it is in effect a non-profit. "That's how our lawyers told us to set it up, and that's how we did it and how we operate," he averred confidently. "We want to operate well within the spirit and letter of the law and in concordance with the community's mores.
Nothing about this signage indicates a support for normalization or decriminalization of marijuana. This place of business exists to salve patients' aches, pains and worries. Photo by Ryan Gierach
"That last is really why we'll never have guns here," Don Duncan, executive director of LAPCG said, referring to those still kept at two clubs, "...the city doesn't like guns... Also, we don't have enough inventory... to warrant them; ...guns escalate...[and] don't deter robbery; and... guns will assuredly complicate any possible federal sentencing if we were targeted for arrest. The presence of a gun increases whatever sentence we might receive if the Feds do raid."
Besides that, he said, "we never have that much cash around — 30 to 40 percent of our volume is credit card or ATM — and I thing the figures ($3-500,000 cash) from the Yellow House raid were probably exaggerated."
He said that several things could set a tone for professionally dealing with the public and the neighbors without bringing to WeHo the worst of what might be called the Berkley hippy ghetto.
"The ambience at LAPCG is set up as a more clinical setting to be welcoming to patients who need medicine," Mr. Duncan told WeHoNews.com, "and not set up to attract the stoner, with pot iconography on the walls and a lot of NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) or Bob Marley stuff around (not that we don't love Marley, too).
He also said that legalization would be a positive good to the patients needing the medicine. "Legalizing it would make it available to one and all, and the ill would benefit most of all."
LAPCG also does thorough background checking on the letters of recommendation they receive. "We check them out and don't allow forgeries or fakes," said Mr. Duncan.
From his perspective at CFCH, Mr. A.H. agreed that thorough letter verification and an apprpriate atmosphere works to keep "recreational users" to a minimum at his club. Ha also thought that the amounts of money being talked about in association with clubs like the Yellow House and his was greatly exaggerated.
"We never have more than a few pounds and a few thousand dollars around," he said, opening his safe to WeHoNews.com. "How much is in there do you think?" The plastic bags filled with green looked like they would have fit into three or four grocery sacks. "I doubt that's ten pounds," A.H. declared.
The shady underside of the business, that element of quasi-criminal status all the dispensaries share, needs addressing urgently, said an operator of a club who chose to remain anonymous. "[The Yellow House raid] proves the need for sunlight and regulation, not only city regulation but self-regulation.
"The whole business is shady," he said, "with dispensary owners in town who have criminal records, people selling such huge quantities that I had to hire someone experienced in drug-dealing to avoid getting cheated when obtaining medicine for the clinic," complained Anonymous, who runs one of the WeHo clubs.
Anonymous, who expressed a desire to leave the dispensing side of the business because of its quasi-legal nature, spoke of his fears that the mix of guns with public perceptions of large amounts of cash and product inside the clubs would endanger not only lives, but the entire movement to bring the needed medication to people.
"The last thing I want is a death, even of a robber, in my shop. It's better that they take the money, but as soon as security guards begin shooting, a killing could happen and then the whole formula changes."
From all three operators speaking on the record came pleas to the city to regulate the dispensaries tightly, in many areas of operation including security procedures and especially in verifying letters of recommendation. All also called for direct taxation, either of the dispensary or of the patient.
Mr. A.H. thought that because West Hollywood had been so gracious to make itself a safe haven for medicinal marijuana and welcome the clubs into the city, "[all the clubs' proceeds] should be taxed...and the proceeds ought to go to a dedicated fund for, say a free clinic, or a nursery school or housing."
Tiffany Ponte' and Jasmine Ramos, employees of CFCH, look over water pipes and other wares inside the shop. Photo by Ryan Gierach
Mr. Duncan concurred. "All of the dispensaries, as far as I can tell, want to pay their fair share. The city can get the info on our volume from our business tax, and that's a fair way to go, [revenue-based taxation], because most of the money is coming in from outside the city.
"There are other ways to gather revenue, too, like issuing a city card required to obtain medicine in town," he said. "They could charge $25 or $30 or even $50 dollars and waive it for the disabled and elderly."
Mr. Malphus told WeHoNews.com that California Cannabis Pharmaceuticals cooperative would support a membership card fee as the cleanest way to bring revenue to the city. "[The city] could give [the membership cards] free to citizens and charge outsiders," he suggested.
He didn't like the idea of a revenue-based fee because his cooperative often traded and bartered plants and product, making quantifying the exchanges difficult.
Messrs. Malphus, A.H., and Duncan all agreed, however, that creating and maintaining an association of the West Hollywood medical marijuana dispensaries was vital key in developing a successful relationship with both residents and city hall.
"We have had three meetings," Mr. Duncan said, "and still have no name for it, but we plan to continue to talk about ways we can deal with issues such as cross-shopping (where people buy the maximum at every stop and re-sell it) and neighborhood impact mitigation."
One idea to which all the operators WeHoNews.com spoke responded enthusiastically came from Susan Healy Keene, acting director of community development for West Hollywood — a Sunset BID-like (Business Improvement District) district patrol on bikes that would be funded by the clubs to keep impacts like smoking medicine in cars or street dealing in residential areas at a minimum.
"In fact," said Mr. Duncan, "I think [all the cannabis dispensaries] could support some sort of commission where all the stakeholders, like the city and sheriff and neighborhood watches and patients and clubs came together to air issues and suggestions."
"We want to be good citizens and good neighbors and supply West Hollywood and the patients in the area with good medicine, legally," he said.
So far, that about sums up what the city has said it wants from the cannabis dispensaries, too. Now they just have to decide what is and is not legal.
Planned for next week, the three clubs not covered here: Alternative Herbal Health Services, Medical Marijuana Farmacy and West Hollywood Caregivers.
WeHoNews.com will attempt to go over the same questions and more with each of them for the Wednesday afternoon, 25th of May edition.
For news on West Hollywood Medical Marijuana Dispensaries, or West Hollywood Cannabis Clubs, click on WeHoNews.com Complete West Hollywood Medical Marijuana Coverage.
Feel free to contact the three clubs below with any questions you might have about their business practices.
Call City Hall at 323) 858-6400 to speak to business licensing division and watch for public notice of hearings on the subject of regulating medical marijuana dispensaries.
California Cannabis Pharmaceuticals
8464 Santa Monica Boulevard
323) 656-1600
marimedrx@sbcglobal.net
LA Patients and Caregivers Group
7213 Santa Monica Boulevard
323) 882-6033
donduncan@yahoo.com
Center for Compassionate Healing
8921 Sunset Boulevard
310) 626-3333
Source: WeHo News
Copyright: 2005 WeHo News
Contact: Ryan Gierach
Website: https://wehonews.blogspot.com/2005/05/51805-news-feature-west-hollywood.html
Mostly owned and operated by experienced dispensary operators new to the city, these clubs have become the targets of varied complaints from their new neighbors, including the city of Los Angeles' Police Department.
Since January the city council heard complaints from constituents about young men apparently dealing the drug outside their home, parked cars full of teens or tweens toking up after one returns with his successful "score" and threatening-looking toughs hanging around waiting for their friends.
The Mayor complained from the city council dais that one dispensary stationed a gun at its door just 150 feet away from a school. "That does not make me, or any parent, feel safer," then-Mayor John Duran said. "Guns escalate situations and endanger lives."
Council responded by placing an "emergency" moratorium on new cannabis dispensaries until the city could adequately regulate the seven dispensaries to which it had granted business licenses by March 2005.
Less than two months later, on May 6th, the most notoriously run of the dispensaries, Yellow House at 1209 N. La Brea Ave., was raided and shut down by the LAPD and Federal Internal Revenue Service. 800 pounds of product worth $5.1 million and between $3-500,000 cash were allegedly seized in the raid.
The Yellow House, or Compassionate Caregivers medical marijuana facility at 1209 N. La Brea Ave., West Hollywood, CA. Photo by Ryan Gierach
According to an LAPD spokesperson, the club allegedly "act[ed] just like a drug house, selling large quantities daily to middlemen street dealers...and the IRS [is investigating] money-laundering in these dispensaries that say they are "non-profit" dispensaries [but are actually] for-profit businesses."
In the aftermath of all that bad news and negative publicity, WeHoNews.com began offering to sit down with the six remaining medical marijuana dispensaries in West Hollywood to dispel rumors and pull back the veil of mystery obscuring these medical cannabis dispensaries' business practices, and perhaps by shedding sunlight on them, disperse the cloud of suspicion left hanging over them by the recent raid.
So far, three of the dispensaries granted WeHoNews.com complete access to their operations, California Cannabis Pharmaceuticals (CCP), LA Patients and Caregivers Group (LAPCG), and the Center for Compassionate Healing (CFCH).
WeHoNews.com spoke to all three of the dispensaries' owners/operators and people inside and outside the clubs who would speak openly and frankly, but only on condition of anonymity.
These three dispensaries were chosen purely because they were the first three to respond to requests for interviews and for no other reason. In next week's issue we will complete this coverage by featuring the remaining cannabis dispensaries' operations in the city.
One of the concerns most often expressed by West Hollywood residents and politicians has been that some of the clubs seem to cater to a large number of apparently youthful and healthy patrons not needing medicine of any kind, let alone for excruciating pain.
Council member Jeffrey Prang E mailed WeHoNews.com in the days after the Yellow House raid, saying, "Some of these places are just storefront drug dealers."
Later, Mr. Prang told WeHoNews.com by phone about his experience waiting for a table at a restaurant with another council member. "It was across from [one of the dispensaries] where the guards are heavily armed and wear body-armor. All we saw go in and out of the club...were healthy-looking young kids."
None of the three of the clubs WeHoNews.com visited showed much evidence of that "healthy-looking young kid" crowd, and all had far less foot traffic than the LAPD claimed that the Yellow House allegedly enjoyed — 235 a day.
Mr. Duncan decried that "whole style" of the Yellow House as too "shady, or shift, for us. We provide medicine for people," he said. "Why not do it in a professional, cheery and bright setting that people will respond well to, like an insurance office? If the stoners don't appreciate that environment, all the better."
The bright office-like setting of California Cannabis Pharmaceuticals, an example of the cheery, professional atmosphere Mr. Duncan spoke of as a deterrent to recreational users' patronage. Photo by Ryan Gierach
Precisely what the folks at California Cannabis Pharmaceuticals said about their operation. "Actually," William Malphrus, the owner of CCP said, "we were looking for some way to get the word out about how much not like the Yellow House and the other high-volume dealers down the street we are when you called." He claims to operate what he calls the only "true medical marijuana cooperative in West Hollywood."
"That's why we're a cooperative, and not a club," Mr. Malphrus said. "[Being a co-op] keeps most of the recreational users away because there's a responsibility to the co-op that comes along with joining."
Indeed, while WeHoNews.com sat with Mr. Malphrus and cohort, two men in their late-30s entered the location carrying another club's membership card and sporting a plastic case full, apparently, of documentation proving their need for medical marijuana. They wanted to make a purchase.
When told that they could obtain medicine, but only after first joining the cooperative by filling out the paperwork and then awaiting verification of their letters of recommendations, (and given that it was a Saturday afternoon, that might not take place until Monday) one of the men scoffed and said, "You're losin' out on a sale — there are half a dozen places down the street where we can buy right now." They stalked away, incredulous.
Mr. Malphus and his crew of three used the incident to stress the responsibility of community participation in cooperatively growing and obtaining the medicine, as suggested, they say, by Proposition 215, the initiative that legalized the use of marijuana for medical needs. "These guys probably came down from Ventura or someplace to make multiple buys and re-sell it all." Another abuse of the system, he said, "was buying from the black market to supply 'patients'."
Coffee and Danish service planned for cooperative members at California Cannabis Pharmacy being set up by a co-op member. Photo by Ryan Gierach
The CCP is a cooperative in the truer sense that "regular classes and workshops are given by members to members and medicine grown by members is brought to the cooperative to share with others who have grown excess for sharing," said Mr. Malphus.
But he warned that not all dispensaries acted that way — many were more like small retailers. He noted a recent phenomenon to hit the streets of West Hollywood — the 'potrepeneur' selling out of his bag up and down the city's streets.
"[Those] 'potrepeneurs' who wander the boulevard here peddling pot by the kilo," he said, "and every one of them picks up and leaves when we tell them they must first join the co-op to make a sale," Mr. Malphus told WeHoNews.com.
"They know there are clubs that will ask no questions and buy what they have — even though that is dead illegal and against Prop 215 — just down the street and they don't have to waste time with us."
The manager of the Sunset Strip's lone cannabis dispensary, Center for Compassionate Healing (CFCH), Mr. A.H. (he chose to identify himself through initials only), told WeHoNews.com that the big reason he opened in West Hollywood was the influx of "others moving into the area from outside with no real regard for the local community. I'm the only club operated by a local southern Californian, not a northern transplant."
"[Some other clubs] will sell to anyone with a letter, whether it is bogus or not," A.H. claimed, "and that does the movement for medical marijuana great harm because it makes medical marijuana a wedge in normalizing it for recreational use, decriminalizing it."
"I come from a medical background — grew up around pain specialists — and see the wonders that this medicine can work in people with chronic pain, or with deep anxiety," A.H. said.
Nor does Mr. Duncan's LAPCG allow the 'potrepeneur' to sell to his dispensary without making the individual grower become a member of the club. "They must produce a letter of recommendation, and we will verify that their doctor has it on record before allowing them into the club and to contribute product," he said. "Most 'potrepeneurs' won't jump through the hoops."
The Yellow House came under scrutiny from the IRS, and may well have heightened scrutiny of all of West Hollywood's medical marijuana dispensaries, by openly operating as a for-profit business.
Still, LAPCG, according to Mr. Duncan, is incorporated as a for-profit California Corporation, but gives all its profits to patients and charity so that it is in effect a non-profit. "That's how our lawyers told us to set it up, and that's how we did it and how we operate," he averred confidently. "We want to operate well within the spirit and letter of the law and in concordance with the community's mores.
Nothing about this signage indicates a support for normalization or decriminalization of marijuana. This place of business exists to salve patients' aches, pains and worries. Photo by Ryan Gierach
"That last is really why we'll never have guns here," Don Duncan, executive director of LAPCG said, referring to those still kept at two clubs, "...the city doesn't like guns... Also, we don't have enough inventory... to warrant them; ...guns escalate...[and] don't deter robbery; and... guns will assuredly complicate any possible federal sentencing if we were targeted for arrest. The presence of a gun increases whatever sentence we might receive if the Feds do raid."
Besides that, he said, "we never have that much cash around — 30 to 40 percent of our volume is credit card or ATM — and I thing the figures ($3-500,000 cash) from the Yellow House raid were probably exaggerated."
He said that several things could set a tone for professionally dealing with the public and the neighbors without bringing to WeHo the worst of what might be called the Berkley hippy ghetto.
"The ambience at LAPCG is set up as a more clinical setting to be welcoming to patients who need medicine," Mr. Duncan told WeHoNews.com, "and not set up to attract the stoner, with pot iconography on the walls and a lot of NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) or Bob Marley stuff around (not that we don't love Marley, too).
He also said that legalization would be a positive good to the patients needing the medicine. "Legalizing it would make it available to one and all, and the ill would benefit most of all."
LAPCG also does thorough background checking on the letters of recommendation they receive. "We check them out and don't allow forgeries or fakes," said Mr. Duncan.
From his perspective at CFCH, Mr. A.H. agreed that thorough letter verification and an apprpriate atmosphere works to keep "recreational users" to a minimum at his club. Ha also thought that the amounts of money being talked about in association with clubs like the Yellow House and his was greatly exaggerated.
"We never have more than a few pounds and a few thousand dollars around," he said, opening his safe to WeHoNews.com. "How much is in there do you think?" The plastic bags filled with green looked like they would have fit into three or four grocery sacks. "I doubt that's ten pounds," A.H. declared.
The shady underside of the business, that element of quasi-criminal status all the dispensaries share, needs addressing urgently, said an operator of a club who chose to remain anonymous. "[The Yellow House raid] proves the need for sunlight and regulation, not only city regulation but self-regulation.
"The whole business is shady," he said, "with dispensary owners in town who have criminal records, people selling such huge quantities that I had to hire someone experienced in drug-dealing to avoid getting cheated when obtaining medicine for the clinic," complained Anonymous, who runs one of the WeHo clubs.
Anonymous, who expressed a desire to leave the dispensing side of the business because of its quasi-legal nature, spoke of his fears that the mix of guns with public perceptions of large amounts of cash and product inside the clubs would endanger not only lives, but the entire movement to bring the needed medication to people.
"The last thing I want is a death, even of a robber, in my shop. It's better that they take the money, but as soon as security guards begin shooting, a killing could happen and then the whole formula changes."
From all three operators speaking on the record came pleas to the city to regulate the dispensaries tightly, in many areas of operation including security procedures and especially in verifying letters of recommendation. All also called for direct taxation, either of the dispensary or of the patient.
Mr. A.H. thought that because West Hollywood had been so gracious to make itself a safe haven for medicinal marijuana and welcome the clubs into the city, "[all the clubs' proceeds] should be taxed...and the proceeds ought to go to a dedicated fund for, say a free clinic, or a nursery school or housing."
Tiffany Ponte' and Jasmine Ramos, employees of CFCH, look over water pipes and other wares inside the shop. Photo by Ryan Gierach
Mr. Duncan concurred. "All of the dispensaries, as far as I can tell, want to pay their fair share. The city can get the info on our volume from our business tax, and that's a fair way to go, [revenue-based taxation], because most of the money is coming in from outside the city.
"There are other ways to gather revenue, too, like issuing a city card required to obtain medicine in town," he said. "They could charge $25 or $30 or even $50 dollars and waive it for the disabled and elderly."
Mr. Malphus told WeHoNews.com that California Cannabis Pharmaceuticals cooperative would support a membership card fee as the cleanest way to bring revenue to the city. "[The city] could give [the membership cards] free to citizens and charge outsiders," he suggested.
He didn't like the idea of a revenue-based fee because his cooperative often traded and bartered plants and product, making quantifying the exchanges difficult.
Messrs. Malphus, A.H., and Duncan all agreed, however, that creating and maintaining an association of the West Hollywood medical marijuana dispensaries was vital key in developing a successful relationship with both residents and city hall.
"We have had three meetings," Mr. Duncan said, "and still have no name for it, but we plan to continue to talk about ways we can deal with issues such as cross-shopping (where people buy the maximum at every stop and re-sell it) and neighborhood impact mitigation."
One idea to which all the operators WeHoNews.com spoke responded enthusiastically came from Susan Healy Keene, acting director of community development for West Hollywood — a Sunset BID-like (Business Improvement District) district patrol on bikes that would be funded by the clubs to keep impacts like smoking medicine in cars or street dealing in residential areas at a minimum.
"In fact," said Mr. Duncan, "I think [all the cannabis dispensaries] could support some sort of commission where all the stakeholders, like the city and sheriff and neighborhood watches and patients and clubs came together to air issues and suggestions."
"We want to be good citizens and good neighbors and supply West Hollywood and the patients in the area with good medicine, legally," he said.
So far, that about sums up what the city has said it wants from the cannabis dispensaries, too. Now they just have to decide what is and is not legal.
Planned for next week, the three clubs not covered here: Alternative Herbal Health Services, Medical Marijuana Farmacy and West Hollywood Caregivers.
WeHoNews.com will attempt to go over the same questions and more with each of them for the Wednesday afternoon, 25th of May edition.
For news on West Hollywood Medical Marijuana Dispensaries, or West Hollywood Cannabis Clubs, click on WeHoNews.com Complete West Hollywood Medical Marijuana Coverage.
Feel free to contact the three clubs below with any questions you might have about their business practices.
Call City Hall at 323) 858-6400 to speak to business licensing division and watch for public notice of hearings on the subject of regulating medical marijuana dispensaries.
California Cannabis Pharmaceuticals
8464 Santa Monica Boulevard
323) 656-1600
marimedrx@sbcglobal.net
LA Patients and Caregivers Group
7213 Santa Monica Boulevard
323) 882-6033
donduncan@yahoo.com
Center for Compassionate Healing
8921 Sunset Boulevard
310) 626-3333
Source: WeHo News
Copyright: 2005 WeHo News
Contact: Ryan Gierach
Website: https://wehonews.blogspot.com/2005/05/51805-news-feature-west-hollywood.html
