October 17, 2013
Local News & Culture Marina del Rey
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Mar Vista rallies against proposed pot clinic Photo by Roy Persinko
By Gary Walker More than 200 people gathered Tuesday in an attempt to keep a medical marijuana dispensary from opening in Mar Vista, but it remains unclear what — if anything — residents and city officials can do to stop it. The proposed dispensary, 33 King, seeks to open later this year in a vacant commercial building at 3472 S. Centinela Ave. Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Bonin answered public outcry that erupted during the special meeting of the Mar Vista Community Council with a pledge to fight. “The message is pretty loud and clear: The city of Los Angeles, [my] council office and this community are opposed to this dispensary,” Bonin told the overflow crowd at the Mar Vista recreation center. As for Justin Keirn, the businessman seeking city permits to open 33 King, “Mar Vista is coming after him,” Bonin said. Keirn declined to comment for this story. Deputy Los Angeles City Attorney Terri Kauffman Macias said the agency is investigating Keirn’s proposal — but apparently not under the authority of Proposition D, an initiative approved by L.A. voters earlier this year that put a cap on the number of dispensaries allowed to operate in the city. Proposition D bans dispensaries other than the 135 that were already legally operating when the law was passed, but it does not allow officials to take action against dispensaries until they open, she said.
FULL HOUSE: Councilman Mike Bonin told the audience at the Mar Vista Recreation Center that he is strongly opposed to a medical marijuana dispensary opening near the corner of Centinela Avenue and Palms Boulevard.
“I was rather surprised to learn that the proposition would allow someone to actually open [a pot clinic], and then I have to bring some staunch opposition” to try to have it closed,” said Michael Henderson, a Mar Vista homeowner who lives near the proposed dispensary site. Despite the apparent catch in the law, “We’re going to have a muscular approach to medical marijuana and making sure
that all medical marijuana businesses that are operating in the city are operating in accordance with the law, here in Mar Vista or anywhere else,” Kauffman Macias said. Bonin and Mar Vista Community Council members said they believed 33 King would violate Proposition D restrictions on where pot clinics can be located. “The city attorney’s office should not
allow this business to open,” said Steve Wallace, a member of the Mar Vista Community Council’s Land Use and Planning Committee. “There are rules and regulations within Prop D which many Mar Vistans supported, but this does not conform.” In an Oct. 8 letter to Keirn, Bonin wrote that he voted for Proposition D and continued to “support compassionate care (Continued on page 4)
Del Rey:
•This Week•
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Page 14
By Gary Walker Tensions are flaring over what Del Rey residents are calling an invasion of their neighborhood by a charter school sharing the campus of Stoner Avenue Elementary School. Angry residents who live on Lindblade and Stoner avenues claim mornings and early afternoons near their homes are flooded with the cars of parents retrieving their students from Citizens of the World, a charter school that opened
in late August. “They take up so much of our streets that it doesn’t look like a residential neighborhood,” said José Benitez, who lives on Lindblade. At the heart of the conflict is a school entrance on Lindblade that parents from the charter use to drop off and retrieve their children each day. Benitez and his neighbors claim the entrance is the root cause of rampant double parking and traffic congestion.
(Continued on page 8)