(Nov. 8, 2009) -- On Sunday afternoon November 8, a little over 48 hours before the City Council discusses an initial draft medical marijuana regulatory ordinance, LBReport.com walked into an ELB medical marijuana dispensary, which states that it's a collective, that recently opened on Los Coyotes Diagonal just east of Woodruff Ave.
LBReport.com lets you see what we saw, and provides extended audio of what the individual who identified himself as its proprietor/owner told us in our conversation.
The location is in one of ELB's commercial nodes at the edge of a residential area...and is within walking distance of Marshall Middle School and Millikan High School. Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske has separately indicated that she's received multiple calls and emails from constituents about it; we learned about it via an email from a nearby resident.
Entering the front door lands one in a small lobby. There are a few chairs, some wall paintings (one with the Queen Mary) and clipboards with documents. The documents state the name of the collective and are entitled "Member Terms and Conditions" (four pages) and a "Patient Member Proxy and Ballot" (one page).
Those entering the lobby face a bank style security window (thick glass with a metal receptacle below to pass signed documents). A big green door to the side leads to what looks like a larger area in back.
There was no marijuana displayed or visible in the lobby, nor any smoking paraphernalia nor edible items. We couldn't see any such items through the security window. We didn't smell any marijuana from the lobby.
Access to the area behind the security window is through the big green door...through which we weren't allowed to enter. The proprietor said only members of the collective are permitted to enter that area.
The proprietor/owner spoke with us without visible hesitation in the small lobby. Although he declined to be video'd, he didn't object to our making an audio recording of our conversation or taking still pictures inside the lobby.
We provide the audio recording of our conversation with very few edits. We made the audio edits audible by including a "whoosh" sound (deleting the proprietor's last name, which he provided but asked us not to publish after receiving some negative neighborhood reactions; plus some digressions). Edits also reflect our inclusion of follow-up questions and answers after we initially shut off our recorder.
Finally, we have no way of knowing to what extent this operation may be different from or similar to others. You're seeing and hearing what we saw and heard. And no, we didn't phone ahead to say we were coming. LBReport.com showed up unannounced.
