Shops to be closed down amid complaints that drug is being sold too freely but patients push for concessions

This article is more than 8 years old

This article is more than 8 years old

Los Angeles may soon be off the map as a pot-smoking mecca following a city council vote to ban storefront medical marijuana dispensaries.

The council has voted unanimously in favour of the crackdown after the mayor, the police chief, the city's attorney office and residents' groups called for restrictions.

LA's 762 registered dispensaries – some say there are actually more than 1,000 – will receive letters ordering them to close or face legal action, signalling the likely end of a freewheeling era that let pot shops sprout across the city.

The 14-0 vote prompted jeers and laments from pro-cannabis groups that gathered in city hall to protest against what they called a callous and misguided prohibition. Police officers briefly intervened to quell them.

The council decision followed mounting complaints from police and neighbourhood groups that legalisation of medicinal marijuana – which remains legal – spawned seedy stores that peddled weed to recreational users on medical pretexts.

Most were profit-making businesses catering to "healthy young adults" rather than sick people with chronic pain, the LAPD chief, Charlie Beck, said in a letter to the council.

Several council members including Jose Huizar had previously supported the dispensaries but changed their minds after residents complained they attracted drug addicts and crime.

The ban will let primary caregivers and patients grow and transport marijuana, and groups of two or three patients may grow and share it at home. Hospices and licensed clinics may also continue to use marijuana for medical care and pain relief.

That exemption was too narrow, said Tamra Howard, one of several medical marijuana users who in recent days lobbied against the ban.

Medical cannabis helped treat and alleviate pain from a kidney problem, Howard said in a published letter: "It gives me an appetite and keeps me from being depressed ... Cannabis is the only thing that keeps me alive. This morning I was nauseous and sick. After medicating I was able to play with my granddaughter. Please don't take that away from me."

Most patients lacked the skills or time to cultivate marijuana, one dispensary owner told the council. Others warned that sweeping restrictions would herald a return to the black market.

In an apparent concession, the council voted to let officials draft an ordinance potentially exempting around 182 of the oldest dispensaries to remain open. These had registered in 2007 before a moratorium.

Unions lobbied for such an exemption but the original ordinance registering those dispensaries had a sunset clause that has expired, leaving their fate unclear.

Authorities said they would review regulation after California's supreme court ruled on pending cases over the sale and distribution of marijuana.

Councilman Paul Koretz, who has in the past supported dispensaries, told reporters he hoped for a more compassionate law in the future.

"We have shut off almost every way that a normal person can get access to marijuana," he said. "It will be a ban until otherwise noted." He reportedly voted against the ban on Tuesday before changing his vote, apparently to avoid a second ballot next week.