The Council ultimately voted 6-1 (Price dissenting) to approve a substitute-substitute motion by Councilwoman Stacy Mungo, directing management to provide a memo to the Council responding the Councilmembers' multiple questions by late March, voted to create an ad hoc "task force" to advise the Council on medical marijuana issues, and in late April agendize management's memo to Councilmembers for discussion. That would be followed shortly thereafter by Council voted action on a draft ordinance (prepared by the City Attorney based on guidance previously provided to city staff by the Planning Commission) to which a Council majority could make changes -- minor tweaks or major changes -- and either enact, or not enact, as soon as late April or early May.

LBREPORT.com provides extended audio coverage (sound clips) and extended transcripts below.

The new ordinance would replace a previous LB ordinance stricken by an appellate court, which led then-City Attorney Bob Shannon to advise the City Council to prohibit all medical marijuana operations in 2012 awaiting a CA Supreme Court ruling on local medpot regulation. The High Court ultimately allowed CA cities to ban or allow medpot operations as a land use regulatory matter.

Many OC cities (and Signal Hill) simply banned all medpot operations (avoiding lawsuits and administrative and enforcement issues), but a Long Beach Council majority (propelled mainly by then-Councilmember (now Mayor) Robert Garcia and Suja Lowenthal), sought to allow by local regulation medpot operations which resulted in lawsuits, enforcement issues and city staff costs before it was struck down.

At the Feb. 10, 2015 city study session, city management told the Council that "it expects the administrative costs , including enforcement, are expected to be substantial and it is not known whether the new revenue as budgeted in the first year would offset those costs..." City Manager Pat West said "based on our prior experiences...we know that the existence of the sanctioned [allowed] businesses...are going to lead to the existence of unsanctioned businesses...In Los Angeles, it's estimated that the unsanctioned businesses outnumber the sanctioned businesses by a margin of seven to one."

Police Chief Robert Luna told the Council:

[Police Chief Luna]...We have learned a lot from our medical marijuana experiences here and from other cities. I want to stress something that was an important lesson learned. We know that sanctioned dispensaries will being unsanctioned dispensaries. These all create a negative impact on our neighborhoods and pose a challenge for public safety in our city. Many City departments struggled to address these challenges with our current staffing levels. We need to ensure that if the City sanctions dispensaries in the future, that all affected departments have the appropriate resources.

It took a lot of time, effort and teamwork for city departments to eliminate dispensaries in Long Beach...The City Attorney responded to 34 lawsuits, 18 which are still active. The City Attorney also held 23 administrative hearings. The City Attorney has dealt with more than 150 discrete medical marijuana issues, advice matters. The City Prosecutor filed approximately 180 criminal cases. The Police Department served 142 search warrants and made 600 arrests. The Fire Department inspected and red-tagged seven buildings used for grow operations, business license issued, 4,307 administrative citations totaling approximately $3.3 million in fines and penalties, most of which were uncollected.

Along the way, there have been many complaints from the community and the City Council. Many people expressed frustration at what they believe to be slow or inadequate response by the Police Department. I really don't want that to happen again,

To hear the salient management statements to the Council, including those of City Manager West and Police Chief Luna, click here. .

Councilwoman Suzie Price was first to speak after city's staff's presentation, noting at the outset that her comments have nothing to do with the merits of medical marijuana as a source of pain management, and inquired about City costs and quality of life issues in a series of questions to Police Chief Robert Luna. To hear Councilwoman Price's questions and the City Manager and Police Chief's responses, click here.

Questions and comments by other Councilmembers followed, which either minimized or didn't aggressively pursue cost issues. That was followed by public testimony that was universally in favor of a new ordinance. Several speakers urged input from a task force of "stakeholders" that the Council previously indicated would be created but never was. A number of speakers attested to the medical benefits of cannabis for themselves or familymembers. Others said they'd incurred major costs in trying to gain permission to operate under LB's original (court stricken) ordinance. Still others urged Long Beach to follow the example of cities like Oakland in enabling the sale of medical cannabis.

After a number of Councilmembers signaled by their comments that they appeared willing to proceed with a second ordinance, Councilwoman Price spoke a second time, this time delivering a sternly word message to her Council colleagues.

[Councilwoman Price]...We are now very much engaged in the discussion about a policy that we have no idea how much the enforcement of this policy would cost the City...So basically we as a Council we'd like to see something come back on the agenda for potential approval, as drafted by the Planning Commission and yet we have no idea how much revenue is going to be brought in if we were to pass this policy, whether or not that revenue would cover the additional expenses that our City is going to have to address as a result of this policy and whether or not we have to take money from the General Fund to augment the services that we now need....

We have a fiduciary duty to the taxpayers of the city to engage in policymaking decisions that we can actually afford. We don't know if we can afford this...

...While I respect that other colleagues have been working on this for years or decades...this isn't about whether people should be able to use marijuana to assist them with health elements or any other condition that they may have. This isn't a debate about that. This is a debate about we are a city, one of the largest urban cities in the state of California, embarking on a journey that might cost us some money. Why is it going to cost us money? Because this particular type of establishment attracts unintended consequences. I'm not talking about legitimate users who need this medication.

I'm talking about people who are trying to abuse the system. I'm talking about people who are opportunistic, who understand that these are cash-based operations. I'm talking about people who, for whatever reason, can't figure out how to get a doctor's recommendation and don't have the legitimacy that 99.9% of the people that use these facilities will have. I'm talking about those people that are going to tax our police department. Our police department is not prepared for this policy change. Period. Done.

I don't care who here thinks it's a great period, and I don't care who believes that we're ready to go today. Our police department is not ready for this policy change. They don't know how many additional hours they're going to need. They don't know how much more money they're going to need. They are not ready for this. And they won't be ready for this until we have some opportunity to do analysis, to determine whether or not the sales tax we expect to receive from these businesses will in fact cover the cost of enforcement, public safety and security. We don't have enough information. This isn't just about pushing something through. This is about thinking it through...

...Where are we going to come up with that extra money? We haven't even had that discussion. So this is going to come back to us in 30 to 60 days, for what? If we can't afford this, we can't pass this. So I do not we believe we should rush it until we have at the very least the financial data. I want to hear from our Police Chief, and his staff and the City Manager, what we expect our financial obligations in regard to the enforcement of these operations to be, so that I can weigh that in to what tweaks I want to put into the current proposed ordinance...

I know that the Chief was extremely classy in his presentation tonight. He was extremely neutral...He didn't say it. I'm going to say it. Our Police Department is not ready for us to move forward on this policy. They don't know what the impact is going to be to them. That's just a reality.

Councilwoman Price's remarks provoked a pointed response from Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal:

[Vice Mayor Lowenthal]...I do respect that several of us are new and several of us are part of the group that was working on this originally. In the not-knowing of the fiscal impacts of this particular policy, I just want to caution us: we don't ask the same questions when we're opening bars or liquor stores or convenience store [shouts off mike: "Yes we do"] We do but, because I have the greatest number of bars and entertainment licenses in my district, the amount of resources that it draws down on public safety. We never recover that and we don't put that on them. Maybe we should, but we don't.

To hear the entire exchange, Mungo motion and Council colloquy to conclusion, the Council vote and concluding comments by Mayor Garcia, click here.

The Council ultimate vote was 6-1 (Price dissenting, Gonzalez absent, 4th dist. vacant) on a substitute-substitute motion by Councilwoman Stacy Mungo that spelled out steps advancing toward a decision, a position favored by Mayor Robert Garcia. Mungo's motion directed city management to summarize issues including costs and anticipated revenues in a memo back to the Council for discussion next week (Feb. 17) to ensure the City Manager can bring a "to-for-from" memo [not routinely made public] to Councilmembers and the Mayor by March 24 that addresses questions that Councilmembers have. On Feb. 17, the City Attorney will also bring a resolution back to the Council on Feb. 17 creating an ad hoc task force (to which the Council can submit names, two per Council district not including 4th dist., to the Mayor (who indicated he won't vet them; he'll simply approve them.)

Mungo said her motion anticipates an agendized item on April 21 or 28 to discuss the management "to-for-from" memo, the resolutions, the costs, etc. and during the intervening period the task force would be meeting simultaneously [and would presumably present its recommendations to the Council as well in April.]

Councilwoman Mungo said under her motion the Council would take up a draft of a medpot ordinance "shortly thereafter." A draft ordinance has already been prepared by the City Attorney's office based on guidance previously provided to city staff by the Planning Commission. That draft ordinance could be changed -- either tweaked or changed in significant ways -- by a Council majority, which could decide whether to enact, or not enact, a second Long Beach medical marijuana ordinance as soon as late April or early May.

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