Special Assistant City Attorney, City of Los Angeles
Special Assistant City Attorney, who drafted Los Angeles' new medicinal marijuana ordinance; former president of Los Angeles City Planning Commission
PROFILE
Jane Usher
Guest
FROM Jane Usher
Which Way, L.A.?
The Pot Crackdown: From 400 to 41 During years when the City Council was otherwise occupied, hundreds of medical marijuana dispensaries sprung up all over Los Angeles. When the Council finally passed a restrictive ordinance , 169 applied to stay in business. Yesterday, the City Clerk announced that just 41 will be eligible . We hear from the president of a local medical marijuana collective and from the city attorney who helped draft the ordinance and is defending it in court.
Which Way, L.A.?
LA Finally Has a Marijuana Ordinance, but Story Is Far from Over San Francisco charges fees to dispensaries of medical marijuana. Voters in Oakland have approved a tax on sales. In both cities, increased regulation has kept the number of dispensaries small. But in Los Angeles, while the City Council wrangled for four and a half years, there was no regulation and hundreds of dispensaries have cropped up all over town. Just this week, an ordinance finally received Council approval.
Which Way, L.A.?
On the Mayoral Race and LA City Politics Los Angeles' next city election is less than three weeks away, but Mayor Villaraigosa and his allies have weak opposition, and it's unlikely that much will change when the voting is over. As President of the Mayor's Planning Commission, Jane Usher won high praise from homeowner groups and civic bloggers who say that developers have too much clout at City Hall. She resigned to give the Mayor what she called “fresh eyes” for his inevitable second term, but in a letter urged him, among other things, to “please reject the careless, sprawl-inducing approach of adding density at every rapid bus stop.”
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