Legal marijuana is on its way back to Long Beach.

LB Green Room, is on pace to open some time in the coming week, manager Adam Hijazi said. The business is in the same location, on Seventh Street near Rose Avenue, where it operated during an earlier period when city government regulated dispensaries, before deciding to ban the shops in 2012.

The dispensary site housed political operations at times during the period when City Hall banned dispensaries, Hijazi said. Supporters for the 2016 ballot measure that allowed LB Green Room and other dispensaries to open in Long Beach campaigned at the site, which is on the now on the verge of receiving its business license.

A City Hall official confirmed LB Green Room is likely to be Long Beach’s first licensed dispensary under current law. Receiving a license could be a significant development in a city that has spent several years contending with the issue.

“We’re very humbled and fortunate to have the city’s and the voters’ and the community’s trust, at least the majority of them, to push these cannabis regulations forward,” Hijazi said.

Inside the Green Room

LB Green Room’s interior is dominated by elements of cool gray stone, pale woods and a large glass window set inside the wall that separates the dispensary’s waiting room from employees responsible for checking would-be customers’ identification and medical recommendations. California voters’ approval of Proposition 64 last November means recreational sales are set to be legal in 2018, but in the meantime, California law still requires cannabis users to have medical recommendations in order to buy marijuana products.

As of Friday, LB Green Room did not have any products on display. Hijazi said he plans to provide such goods as marijuana flowers, vaporizer cartridges, edibles, tinctures and other cannabis-infused projects.

The average marijuana dispensary has 15 to 25 employees, Hijazi said. LB Green Room is starting off with about 10 workers, and Hijazi said the place will be a union shop. United Food and Commercial Workers provided significant financial support to Measure MM, the local ballot measure allowing a dispensaries to return to Long Beach, and the organization has identified the marijuana industry as a potential source of new union members.

Long Beach Cannabis laws

California voters first approved medical marijuana in 1996, but the initiative did not spell out how state and local governments could go about regulating the marijuana providers. Federal law continues to ban marijuana as a Schedule 1 Controlled Substance.

Long Beach’s City Council approved an ordinance regulating dispensaries in March 2010. Later that year, city officials held a lottery to determine which dispensaries could operate within city limits.

The council acted to shut down dispensaries in 2012. A subsequent process involving the Planning Commission’s effort to draft a new ordinance, a special community task force and further City Council debate ended with council members failing to agree on a marijuana law.

That cleared the way for Hijazi and others in the Long Beach Collective Association to promote Measure MM. The voter-approved law ties the number of permissible dispensaries to the city’s population, so 32 outlets are allowed for the time being. The law also gave priority to applications from cannabis providers who won the 2010 lottery.

A public lottery for 10 would-be providers who do not have priority status is set for Sept. 28, said Ajay Kolluri, assistant to the city manager.

The city received some 160 applications, said Kolluri.

After marijuana advocates turned to the ballot initiative process, city officials asked voters to approve a referendum, Measure MA, allowing city officials to set marijuana tax rates. City government estimates the Measure MA will generate more than $5 million in new tax dollars next year.

If LB Green Room opens as planned, the dispensary will be subject to a 6 percent local gross receipts tax, Kolluri said.

Measure MA also sets an initial tax rate for recreational marijuana sales at 8 percent after Proposition 64 goes into effect.

The proposition also establishes an additional 15 percent tax on recreational sales, while allowing documented users of medicinal marijuana to avoid the tax.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said earlier this week at a San Diego press conference that marijuana should not be legal.

Hijazi, however, pointed to recent congressional moves to restrict federal authorities from enforcing Uncle Sam’s marijuana provisions in states allowing cannabis use as one reason he expects the marijuana industry to remain legal in California.

“Is it (concern about renewed enforcement) always there? The answer is yes,” he said. “But with strong and responsible regulations, we feel that being transparent, we won’t have any of those issues.”