Glendale works to keep medical marijuana dispensary ban in place

The City Council wants to uphold its strict local ban on medical marijuana dispensaries and is working to beat a deadline that could hand over regulatory control to the state.

With a 4-0 vote, council members introduced amendments to the city code, tightening the prohibition of not just selling, but also cultivating and delivering medical pot.

“The ordinance before you really preserves your ability to control on a local level,” Philip Lanzafame, the city’s community development director, told the council.

The amendments will be brought back for a final vote later this month.

Last October, Gov. Jerry Brown signed the Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act to regulate the sale and distribution of medicinal marijuana through a state department.

The law also afforded cities the right to adopt ordinances stating they’d prefer to manage such transactions on their own or not at all. Either way, every municipality has until March 1 to act.

In 2011, Glendale adopted its ban on medical-marijuana dispensaries, along with the ability to cultivate, deliver and distribute within the city’s borders.

The proposed code amendments get much more specific to ensure the state gets the message by expanding the definitions of what it means to grow marijuana and how to process or “clean” or “cure” it.

One crucial part of the amendments outright states that no permit, variance or license would allow for any of the aforementioned practices within Glendale.

“It’s a safety net for us,” said Councilman Vartan Gharpetian. “It cannot be interpreted in any different way.”

However, the upgraded code might not mean a permanent ban on medical marijuana in Glendale.

“You have to make an affirmative action to maintain that control and, in the future, you can change your mind and allow one or more of these [uses],” Lanzafame said.

Councilwoman Laura Friedman, who said during the meeting that she voted in favor of the Compassionate Use Act of 1996, which allowed for the use of medical cannabis in California, said the discussion of its retail use could wait for another day.

Recreational use remains prohibited in California.

The day Friedman referred to could be sometime after the March 1 deadline.

“I think we need to see what the state does first. We need to see what the regulatory framework is for the whole state before we can have a discussion about changing our ordinance,” Friedman said. “Today, we’re preserving our ability to weigh in.”

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Arin Mikailian, arin.mikailian@latimes.com

Twitter: @ArinMikailian