(Sept. 20, 2015, updated with add'l text Sept. 21) -- In a memo (full text below) agendized for City Council consideration on Sept. 22, Assistant City Attorney Mike Mais discusses the City's options (meaning the City Council's options) under three recently passed Assembly and state Senate passed bills (collectively the "Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act" or MMRSA) that create a comprehensive statewide regulatory framework for cultivating, testing and distributing medical cannabis and its related products. (The Governor's office had input on the bills so it's assumed he'll sign them and not veto them.)

The City Attorney's office publicly agendized memo (full text below) includes an itemized matrix of various issues and tells the Council in pertinent part: .

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[Ass't City Att'y Mike Mais memo text] The MMRSA makes clear that local public entities retain their current right to ban medical marijuana dispensaries, cultivation sites, and related medical marijuana activities within their respective jurisdictions. The MMRSA also makes clear that cities are fully empowered to adopt regulatory ordinances related to medical marijuana. If cities choose to regulate medical marijuana, they may adopt typical land use regulations such as zoning restrictions, buffer areas, cultivation regulations, Conditional Use Permit ("CUP") requirements, application and licensing requirements, regulatory fees, taxes, and the like.

The City's current ban on medical marijuana activities remains in effect. If Council desires to retain the ban in its present form it need do nothing. If, on the other hand, Council desires to adopt a regulatory ordinance, the City Attorney's Office requests direction on several key elements of such an ordinance. The critical issues that must be addressed include:

1. Number of dispensaries per Council District or Citywide;

2. Which zoning districts;

3. Buffer from which locations (e.g., schools, parks, libraries, childcare facilities);

4. Cultivation;

5. Delivery; and

6. Timing.

Any regulatory ordinance adopted by the City Council would operate in conjunction with the numerous provisions of the MMRSA, if the three bills are approved by the Governor. However, many of the provisions of the MMRSA require that various State agencies formulate and adopt administrative regulations before the MMRSA becomes fully operational. If the Council chooses to adopt a regulatory ordinance at this time, the City Attorney's office would craft an ordinance that would address the City's immediate local concerns and would include provisions that would transition certain regulatory functions and responsibilities to the State (e.g., product testing, labeling, and certain licensing activities) when the various State agencies are in a position to commence their respective regulatory activities pursuant to the MMRSA.

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LBREPORT.com provides the full memo text below.

Long Beach City Att'y office memo re Medical Marijuana (Sept. 22, 2015)

The City Attorney's recommended action on its memo is to "receive and file"...which leaves the local policy-setting City Council (again) with a decision: it can leave things as they currently are with medpot outlets not allowed to operate in Long Beach -- or -- under the new and as yet untried/untested statewide regulatory framework enact a new LB medpot ordinance that lets the new type of medical marijuana outlets return...with decisions on where, how many, on what terms and conditions and subject to what fees and taxes decided by a Council majority subject to a Mayoral veto that six Councilmembers can override.

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Although people using medical marijuana legally will continue to need a doctor's prescription, the new laws effectively try to eliminate former "collectives" and "co-ops" and instead create licensed, background checked, commercial growers, distributors and sellers. The legislation creates about a dozen types of licenses...and allows local licensing...and cities and counties can ban medical cannabis activity...or zone it and tax it.

While most other L.A. County and OC cities banned medpot outlets (L.A. was an exception), previous LB Councils devoted significant time and multiple agenda items to debate, amend and enact a LB ordinance that would regulate medical marijuana. The process was contentious and polarizing. The major Council advocates for a local medpot ordinance were Councilman/Vice Mayor (soon to be Mayoral candidate and now Mayor) Robert Garcia and now-Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal. Opponents included Councilman/now-Assemblyman Patrick O'Donnell and former LB Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske.

A Council majority ultimately enacted a LB medical marijuana ordinance...but it didn't satisfy a number of medical marijuana proponents. The results included multiple lawsuits, administrative and enforcement issues, neighborhood residents' complaints and taxpayer costs before an CA appellate Court struck LB's ordinance down (as an attempt to regulate what federal law didn't allow.).

With no enforceable ordinance in place, then-City Attorney Bob Shannon urged the Council ban medical marijuana dispensaries to halt the uncontrolled proliferation of outlets until the CA Supreme Court ruled on several legally murky matters.

The Council enacted a ban...but the CA Supreme Court ruled and clarified some matters...giving cities a choice in whether to allow or ban medpot outlets.) A LB Council majority sought to try to enact second LB medical marijuana regulatory ordinance and once again, the process was contentious and polarizing.

The Council opted to appoint an advisory Task Force and aimed for a September 1, 2015 Council meeting to consider the Task Force's recommendations. But at the September 1 meeting, Mayor Garcia told the Council that the state legislature was then-considering bills, with the input of the Governor's office that could create a statewide regulatory framework. (The legislature had actually been considering the bills for months, although the Governor's office involvement was fairly new.) Garcia urged the Council to hold off on a LB ordinance until the legislation either passed or failed.

A Council majority agreed, and deferred action until Sept. 22, and asked the City Attorney's office to provide a report on Sept. 22 analyzing whatever Sacramento enacted in terms of the options for the City. That item is coming to the Council now.

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Prior to the state legislation (awaiting Governor's signature) with a statewide regulatory framework, LB City Manager Pat West and LBPD Police Chief Robert Luna publicly advised/cautioned/warned the Council of what they say will be fiscal costs and public safety resource issues if the Council were to lift LB's current ban and enact a new LB medpot ordinance.

City Manager West told the Council in a March 24, 2015 memo:

[City Mgr. Mar. 24, 2015 memo] The City does not currently have the resources to successfully implement and manage a medical marijuana ordinance. If an ordinance were adopted without additional resources, the City would experience the same type of problems encountered with the prior ordinance, perhaps to an even greater degree. Further, even if additional resources were found, there would need to be a minimum of a one year preparation period as staff would need to be hired through Civic Service. Additionally, the Police Department would need to decide which current enforcement operations would be reduced to provide a marijuana enforcement detail. Also, consultants would need to be interviewed and hired and appropriate policies and procedures would need to be developed to be fully prepared for the ordinance implementation.

The City Manager followed-up with a detailed, itemized June 3, 2015 memo (text below) indicating that LB's previous medpot ordinance cost LB taxpayers nearly $4 million from FY10 through FY15:

During this same time period, the City collected $1,275,000 in fines from administrative citations, out of a total of $3,320,000 issued.

The bottom line FY10-FY15: city management estimated a net cost to LB taxpayers of $3,985,000.

To view the full June 3, 2015 and March 24, 2015 memos (single document), see below.

June 201 Long Beach City Mgr. re Proposed Medical Marijuana Ordinance

The City Manager's June memo (after itemizing costs by several Departments) estimated annual costs for all Departments to implement a proposed new ordinance as then drafted would be $3,905,000 plus one-time costs of $445,000...for total costs of $4.395,000.

Regarding anticipated revenue from a new ordinance, the City Manager's June memo indicates that the Financial Management Department hired a consultant who roughly projected estimated tax revenues as follows:

[City Manager June 3 memo text] The consultant estimated that 4% of the City's adult population would be medical m marijuana patients, based on rates ranging from 11.7% to 5% in other California cities. In addition, the consultant estimated the demand and usage rates within the City based on ordinance features, such as the local grow requirement and the inability for collectives to establish discounted loyalty programs. The projectIons below include three different scenarios based on low, medium, and high patient demand and retention. The consultant further estimated how altering requirements of the ordinance, including tine local grow and residency requirements, would affect revenues. Finally, the consultant assumed cultivation sites would be of various sizes, and the projections below assume that there will be twelve small facilities, four medium size facilities, and two large facilities. Although these projections have been developed based on the best available evidence, the nature of the medical marijuana industry makes accurate revenue forecasting difficult. The projections below should be interpreted as rough estimates. If the City Council decides to pass a regulatory ordinance, actual revenue may vary significantly from this estimate. The revenues below assume a level of 6% on gross receipts from dispensaries and a $15 per square foot business tax applied to cultivation facilities and also include the City's 1% share of sales tax on all sales from dispensaries. Transfer from cultivation facilities to dispensary facilities would not be taxable under the current ordinance, as both facilities would be owned by the same company.

Immediate past LBPD Chief (now County Sheriff) Jim McDonnell, and his LB successor, current LBPD Chief Robert Luna both recommended that the Council not lift LB's current ban. They cited costs, negative neighborhood impacts and drains on current LBPD resources. Chief Luna told the Council that he will need need for additional LBPD resources if a Council majority really intends to proceed. Chief Luna said that based on his experience, he expects letting medical marijuana outlets to reopen would bring negative impacts to neighborhoods and further stretch LBPD's resources.

At a July 25 meeting of neighborhood residents (VIDEO below), Councilwoman Suzie Price urged attendees to attend the then-scheduled Sept. 1 Council medpot item [now deferred to Sept. 22], noting that those in favor of re-opening the outlets will, as they traditionally have, show up in sizable numbers while others frequently don't do so.

Councilwoman Price framed the issue in terms of city resources, not cannabis benefits. It's more about whether the City can absorb the industry given the resources and budget limitations that the City has, she said. "Whatever your opinion is about marijuana, that's not the subject of the debate. The debate is, what is it going to require from the ciyt resource-wise to support this industry and to effectuate the industry...and are we as a city ready to take that on. That's the only question in my opinion. It could be the most brilliant, wonderful idea ever but if you can't take it on as an obligation, then it's not something that is reasonable for you..."

Long Beach Police Chief Robert Luna, the invited speaker at the meeting, said: "At the end of the day, what Councilwoman Price said is true. It did negatively impact the resources of this Police Department" and added, "Did it have an impact on the Police Department? Yes it did: a negative one."

Long-time medical marijuana advocate Diana Lejins attended the event and provided a counter-point: "During the time that we actually had the dispensaries, crime kept going down. Now there's none but crime goes up, so you can't demonize that any more; now you're using Prop 47 as an excuse, to me, for the crime. Perhaps we need to take a different look at the other states, the other cities, the other places where it actually does work and reduces crime...Proper regulation, if you have it, can reduce crime..."

Chief Luna replied that he respected Ms. Lejins' opinion but didn't agree with it. "At the end of the day, I want to make this city safer, and I'm going to try and take almost every angle I can to make that happen but in my years of experience, and I have a lot of 'em, narcotic use is directly tied into violent crime and property crime, and when I say narcotic use, I mean heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, I'm not only talking about marijuana..."

For VIDEO of the full statements on this issue by Councilwoman Price, Chief Luna and Ms. Lejins, click here.

Advocates of medical cannabis have frequently used City Council periods for public comment on non-agendized items to urge the Council to lift its current ban and let medpot outlets operate again, arguing for local access to a medicinal substance that they say helps people handle the effects of serious diseases.

There has also been a lesser amount of public comment in favor of keeping the ban in place, including a 2nd district resident who described at several Council meetings multiple negative impacts on his neighborhood he attributed to a dispensary near his residence (bringing no audible support for his viewpoint from 2nd dist. Council rep. Suja Lowenthal.)

On Aug. 5, the Council's Medical Marijuana Advisory Task Force (18 members, 2 per Council district) voted 7-6 to recommend that the Council not lift its current ban on medpot outlets until the state legislature acted [which it has now done] but voted down an item 5-8 that would have recommended that the Council continue the City's current ban on medpot operations; in other words, it favored the Council lifting its current ban after the state legislature acted (which the state legislature has done (awaiting the Governor's signature.).

Currently, a number of statewide petition initiatives are gathering signatures; if they qualify for the ballot, CA voters would decide in 2016 whether to allow recreational -- not just medicinal -- use of cannabis statewide...much as Colorado voters did.

And some medical marijuana advocates have indicated they plan to challenge the new legislation in court (assuming it becomes law.) The American Medical Marijuana Association has indicated it plans to challenge the legislation on grounds it attempts to modify voter-enacted Prop 215 with a measure enacted by the state legislature (not allowed under the CA constitution.)

Marijuana remains a designated [by Congress] as a federal Class 1 controlled drug...although the Obama administration's Justice Dept. has said it won't enforce some federal laws as long as they're consistent with state medical marijuana provisions and meet other DOJ requirements. That may or may not change under a different administration...especially if a Repub is elected president.,,which could put state laws on skakey ground unless Congress acts.

A previous LB City Council voted years ago to add a section to the City's federal legislative agenda [policies the City is supposed to be supporting/advocating] to "Support legislation to classify medical marijuana as a recognized pharmaceutical medication dispensed through pharmacies." Such action would involve legislative action in Congress.

Congressman Alan Lowenthal (D, Long Beach-West OC) has supported some legislation supportive of medical marijuana dispensaries, but to date we are unaware of any House legislation authored or supported by him (or by Cong. Janice Hahn (D, LA Harbor/southbay) that would do what the City's legislative agenda seeks. However a bill introduced in March 2015 in the U.S. Senate by Senator Cory Booker (D, NJ), joined by co-sponsors Sen. Rand Paul (R, KY) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D, NY) -- S 683 -- would downgrade marijuana from Schedule 1 to Schedule 2 of the Controlled Substances Act. Since then, 12 co-sponsors have been added to the three originating Senators including Sen. Barbara Boxer (D, CA.)

Developing. LBREPORT.com plans to carry the upcoming Sept. 22 City Council meeting LIVE on our front page: www.LBREPORT.com.