Hold Your Horses: Los Angeles EMMDs Will Soon be Prevented from Relocating

05 Nov Hold Your Horses: Los Angeles EMMDs Will Soon be Prevented from Relocating

Certain L.A. dispensaries may soon be stuck in place.

Los Angeles’s existing medical marijuana dispensaries (“EMMDs”) under Measure M will soon be precluded from relocating from their current operations unless and until they receive their local annual licenses from the City of Los Angeles. Movement post-initial application to L.A. has been a common practice for  EMMDs for some time, and has apparently caused a rift with other potential commercial cannabis licensees who were effectively “zoned out” based on buffer requirements when an EMMD moved into their planned licensed territory (non-EMMD storefronts have to be no less than 700 feet from each other). The new requirement goes into effect soon—but just how soon remains to be seen.

On October 19, 2018, the Los Angeles Rules, Elections, and Intergovernmental Relations Committee (the “Committee”) held a meeting which dealt with various cannabis-related matters. Shortly before the October 19 meeting, the Los Angeles Department of Cannabis Regulation (“DCR”) submitted a letter requesting amendments to the City’s cannabis procedures, which are codified in the Los Angeles Municipal Code (“LAMC”). The letter requested that the City Council instruct the DCR to stop processing EMMD relocation requests or amend the LAMC accordingly. The DCR is concerned with EMMD relocation requests because:

In certain instances, an EMMD has re-located to a business premises within 700 feet of a location a Phase 3 applicant has secured as a potential retail business premises. Because the City does not permit a Phase 3 retailer to be within 700 feet of another retailer, in those instances, the Phase 3 applicant must abandon the location it has secured and find an alternate location. As this re-location issue may impact the Tier 1 and Tier 2 Social Equity Applicants applying for retail licenses, DCR recommends that the City Council either instruct DCR to stop processing EMMD re-location requests or amend Sec. 45.19.7.2 of Article 5.1 of Chapter IV of the LAMC to prohibit EMMD re-locations as of January 1,2019.

In other words, EMMD relocations could create a block on real estate for potential other dispensary licensees, and based on the social equity program in the City (for more on social equity, see here), the City wants to make sure that phase 3 social equity retailers get a fair shot at a more static real estate situation.

Also on October 19, the Committee issued a report that requests that the City Attorney, working with the DCR, “prepare and present an Ordinance to amend [the LAMC] to prohibit future Existing Medical Marijuana Dispensaries re-locations prior to the issuance of an annual license, and instruct the DCR to cease accepting and approving new re-location requests while this ordinance is under consideration by the City Council.”

EMMDs whose local annual licenses are still under review will thus no longer be able to change locations (unless and until they get that annual local approval)—but the big question is when that will kick in. From the text of the report, the DCR will be instructed to cease accepting and approving new relocation requests while the to-be-drafted ordinance is under consideration. It does not look like the ordinance is yet under consideration, so relocation requests may still be processed by the DCR if you get in the queue now.

One other important issue is whether relocation requests submitted before the ordinance is passed can still be approved after the ordinance is implemented–meaning, is the ordinance going to be retroactive? The text of the report suggests that the DCR’s ban will be only for new relocation requests made after the ordinance is under consideration. That said though, it really depends on what the ordinance ultimately says in the end and whether the City Attorney and DCR decide to prohibit any already-pending relocation requests.

For now, stay tuned. We will be sure to provide updates on the EMMD relocation prohibition as it evolves.