City staff acknowledged that applying the above criteria might preclude allowing marijuana outlets in some Council districts, which displeased some proponents of the outlets. Vice Mayor Garcia said he believes restricting the outlets to certain Council districts is problematic in terms of providing safe access and indicated he was supporting referral to the Planning Commission in order to advance the process.

Near the start of the agenda item, Police Chief McDonnell (speaking from written text) publicly advised Councilmembers and the public:

Mayor Foster, members of the City Council. Thank you for the opportunity to be able to talk about this important topic.

I'd like to speak briefly about the history of medical marijuana in Long Beach and the negative impact dispensaries have had on our community. We're fortunate to have already seen firsthand if the city enacts a new medical marijuana collective ordinance. The city's earlier attempt to permit and license a limited number of dispensaries was not successful. Although 18 were allowed, there were more than 50 operating at one time.

City resources have been ill-equipped to combat that challenge. As I said, we've already seen firsthand the kind of negative impact that medical marijuana dispensaries have caused. There's been an adverse impact on both the community's quality of life and the ability of city staff to respond to complaints, complaints we have yet to fully resolve.

It's been over one year since the full ban went into effect and there are presently six dispensaries in operation.

We know that Long Beach has a murder linked to a marijuana dispensary as well as robberies, shootings and burglaries. In addition, common neighborhood complaints include public marijuana use, noise disturbances, disputes, increased foot traffic, loitering and discarded marijuana wrappings in the vicinity of dispensaries.

Many people have expressed frustration with the Police Department with our apparent inability to close down all of the dispensaries with the full ban in effect. I assure you that this is not for lack of trying.

We've been working in collaboration with multiple city departments including Financial Management, Fire, City Attorney, City Prosecutor, Developmental Services, Health and Public Works. We have been asked to devote more resources in the gang detail and the enforcement of realignment, prohibited possessors, property crime and human trafficking. Opening the door to marijuana dispensaries will severely limit our ability to respond to these and other items requested by the Council.

...

I'm concerned with what will happen if the city enacts a new medical marijuana collective ordinance. As a result of much collaborative effort, the number of dispensaries operating in Long Beach has been decreasing. There were only four known dispensaries when the City Council recently gave direction to the City Attorney's office to explore new legislation. Two additional dispensaries have opened since that direction was given.

We already know that if the city opens the door to dispensaries by enacting a new medical marijuana collective ordinance, other law enforcement partners from the DEA to the L.A. County DA's office will not devote resources to help us combat that illegal activity. [Ed. note: the Chief elaborates on this in Council colloquy below.]

I encourage you to reconsider the detriment that a new ordinance will have on our community. Whatever possible good you believe that we'll be doing for a small segment of the population will drastically be outweighed by the negative impact to the greater community and a significant strain on an already limited city staffing resources. Allowing dispensaries is not the answer to help those who are ill. The law already provides the ability for a collective to grow and share marijuana for this purpose. Thank you.

Later in the Council proceedings, Councilman Steve Neal engaged in a colloquy with the Police Chief:

Councilman Neal: I think the thing I'm struggling with the most is what initially when we enacted the original ordinance, our goal was to have safe access, and the fact that we had an ordinance in place where we knew who the legal players were, it sounds like what I'm hearing you say is, if we go down that route, it's difficult for you to enforce the ordinance when you know who the players are who are supposed to be there and there are folks outside of that realm, what is the challenge...in making these folks comply?

Police Chief McDonnell: Thank you for that question. Contrary to what you were trying to get at in facilitating the Compassionate Use Act, what you actually have with medical marijuana dispensaries is very much a for-profit industry to the point where we've made over 300 arrests, which is very critical time that we've taken detectives away from gang cases, child abuse cases and all the other cases that we work to focus on this problem. We have had success; we've gone from 55 dispensaries down to 4, but it's been extremely labor intensive to do that. So when we try and take these businesses down...anything that we do to overcome what they're doing, is because they have so much money, they've taken so much money out of these,...they can pay fines with impunity, they can do whatever it is they have to do, because there's so much money in this. This is not as intended by the Compassionate Use Act to be something provided for the patient by a primary caregiver. These are not primary caregivers. They're commercial businesses that make tremendous amounts of money and as a result stay a step ahead of us...

Councilman Neal: That's difficult to grasp in regards what is the original intent of what I believe this body wanted to do.

Chief McDonnell: It's 180 degrees away from what you intended.

Vice Mayor Garcia was then given the floor and asked Assistant City Attorney Mike Mais about marijuana outlet operators that had operated under city rules (under the original ordinance) and had a productive relationship with the City Hall (in contrast to collectives sometimes dubbed "rogue" operators.)

City Attorney Mike Mais replied that a number of the previously cooperative entities had changed personnel and thus the new draft ordinance proposes effectively starting the selection process from scratch and treating all applicants equally. Vice Mayor Garcia said that was problematic to him in the sense that the Council would lose what he called any "thoughtful measure" in terms of history of those which had previously complied.

City Attorney Mais responded that the City had also received complaints about the compliant operators (no permits granted but complied with city stated desires) including complaints from Councilmembers and the public regarding alleged nuisance activities including people coming and going at all hours, late night operations, litter in the neighborhoods, cars queing, people smoking marijuana out in front in the neighborhoods.

Police Chief McDonnell used the opportunity to reiterate that if Long Beach opened the door to allow medical marijuana dispensaries, it would as a practical matter not receive resources that the L.A. County DA's office and DEA make available to cities that have banned dispensaries. "We will use whatever resources we have to be able to enforce the law. Our problem is that once the city sanctions any, then we don't have the ability to use other resources, DEA, the DA's office and others, to be able to deal with our issue, because the cities that get help from the federal agencies are the ones who are trying to take care of the issue themselves. The ones that are sanctioning some find themselves then dealing with that problem alone.

[Editor's note: On Dec. 18, LBREPORT.com emailed the respective press contacts for the L.A. County District Attorney's office and the DEA and asked if it's accurate that if Long Beach enacts a new medical marijuana ordinance, the agencies wouldn't devote resources to help LB combat illegal activity. The L.A. County DA's press contact said the office declines comment at this time; the DEA press contact said that as a federal law enforcement agency DEA will continue to enforce federal drug laws.]

City management (per Dir. of Development Services Amy Bodek) indicated that staff plans to schedule the item for Planning Commission consideration in February, meaning its recommendations(s) might not return to the Council for up to 60 days. That timeline audibly displeased Councilwoman Lowenthal, who said the issue has been pending for five years [ed. note: after early discussions, the Council adopted LB's first medpot ordinance in the first half of 2010.] Ms. Bodek said Planning Commissioners hadn't confronted the issues now being raised; Councilwoman Lowenthal noted that the issues were land-use related, not philosophical; said extended discussions had already taken place; and indicated favors with dispensing with study sessions on the matter. City Manager Pat West stepped in and indicated [paraphrase] that city staff wouldn't create delays but the Planning Commission might independently seek additional time and proceedings beyond what city staff envisions.

The Council ultimately voted 9-0 (motion by Lowenthal, second by Neal) to direct the City Attorney to prepare draft ordinance text with the criteria described above which will be forwarded to the Planning Commission and agendized for that body's consideration.

The Council then voted 7-1 (Schipske dissenting, Andrews exited/absent) on an item agendized by Lowenthal, Garcia and Austin to have the City Attorney's office draft a ballot measure that would tax the gross receipts of marijuana collectives (which couldn't/wouldn't take effect until the Planning Commission-recommended ordinance returns to the Council for voted action...with the soonest staff estimate roughly March/April 2014.