Long Beach is considering crafting a new law that would allow the city to penalize property owners who operate or allow tenants to operate unlicensed, illegal medical marijuana businesses.

One of the penalties could include shutting off those properties’ utility services, according to a statement from Councilwoman Suzie Price’s office.

“Long Beach needs effective tools at our disposal to limit the detrimental effects of marijuana businesses to our communities, and our city resources,” Price said in a statement. “If we can shut down an illegal marijuana business faster because we have made it too difficult for them to operate illegally, then we free up city resources in Code Enforcement, in the Police Department and in the City Prosecutor’s office.”

The City Council will discuss Price’s proposed legislation on Tuesday.

Deputy City Attorney Monica Kilaita said similar action is being considered in the city of Los Angeles where there is a ballot initiative that would direct the city to work with the Department of Water and Power to shut off utilities for illegal medical marijuana businesses.

“It’s still a work in progress of how that would actually be handled,” she said.

Assistant City Attorney Mike Mais said if the council directs the city attorney’s office to draft a new ordinance, officials would research similar practices in other cities and determine the best process. Because Long Beach controls water and gas, not electricity, chances are they would look at those two utilities, he said.

The proposed regulation comes months after voters approved Measure MM, a citizen-backed ballot measure that repealed a ban on medical marijuana businesses in Long Beach and created safeguards for their existence. Long Beach began accepting applications for dispensary business licenses in January.

Mais said the city received about 200 applications, though the measure set a cap of 32 dispensaries, based on population size.

No licenses have been issued yet, Mais said, but he anticipates some will be awarded soon, and businesses could be operational within the next 90 days.

Long Beach will begin accepting applications for cultivation and lab testing operations on Monday, he said.

Although California was the first state to legalize medicinal cannabis in 1996 with voter Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act, the state never passed any regulations setting forth how cannabis could be produced, distributed and sold to the consumer. As a result, many cities faced a proliferation of unlicensed and illegal dispensaries.

Prior to the passage of MM, Long Beach leaders cautioned that legalizing medicinal cannabis would lead to an influx of unlicensed and illegal operations throughout the city. Though the city has a wide array of enforcement tools at its disposal, Price said shutting an illegal business down can take months.

Mais said the ordinance makes it a misdemeanor to operate without a license, and also declares that type of illegal operation a “nuisance,” which gives the city authority to take any action it would normally take to abate a nuisance, including civil or criminal prosecution, administrative citations and property liens.

Typically, though, Mais said a letter warning property and business owners that they are breaking the law and could be subjec to prosecution is often all that’s needed.

“We’ve done a really good job in the last couple years of tamping them down as they pop up,” he said.

City Prosecutor Doug Haubert said via email there are presently no pending criminal cases involving the operation of an existing marijuana dispensary. That doesn’t mean there are no illegal dispensaries, he said, as there are almost certainly some illegaly medical marijuana delivery businesses, but no cases have been presented for prosecution for quite some time.

In contrast, from 2010 to 2014, Haubert said there were between five and 10 illegaly operating dispensaries in Long Beach at any given time, resulting in over 200 cases.

With regard to Tuesday’s item, Haubert said he supports the concept of looking at additional enforcement tools for medical marijuana businesses that operate in violation of city or state law.

“If past experience is any indication, some operators will try in good faith to follow the rules, and there will be others who have no regard for the law,” he said.