Win for Rancho Mirage agaisnt pot dispensaries

A judge today granted the city of Rancho Mirage’s request for a preliminary injunction that will keep a medical marijuana dispensary closed at least through early next year.
The city filed suit against the operator of Rancho Mirage Safe Access Wellness Center on July 10. The dispensary opened at 72067 Highway 111 without a certificate of occupancy, which is required to occupy any structure in the state, and the city’s municipal code bans medical marijuana dispensaries, City Attorney Steve Quintanilla said.
Riverside County Superior Court Judge John G. Evans previously granted a temporary restraining order closing the dispensary — the Aug. 6 order would have expired tomorrow.
Evans heard arguments for and against the injunction in his Indio courtroom on Monday and issued a written ruling today. He said the group that runs the dispensary, All Valley Desert Cooperative Inc., has 90 days to comply with any “written deficiencies” issued by the city.
Quintanilla said this afternoon that the dispensary has to stay closed during litigation of the case. Another hearing is set for Jan. 7.
Quintanilla said on Monday that city staff, after an inspection, denied the dispensary a certificate of occupancy because it wasn’t handicapped-accessible and parking space sizes didn’t comply with the state building code.
The permit was also denied because of the city’s dispensary ban, which is still in effect while the city appeals another judge’s ruling that its ban was invalid.
“I find it distressing that a business that purports to serve ill patients (some of whom may be physically disabled) does not seem to be genuinely concerned with disability access issues, which makes me think it is all about making a profit and nothing more,” Quintanilla said in an email to City News Service.
Dispensary attorney Joseph Rhea previously told CNS that the city was trying to enforce a ban that another Indio judge had already ruled was illegal.
Judge Randall D. White issued that ruling in the city’s case involving another medical marijuana dispensary, Desert Heart Collective, which sued the city for $2.2 million in February 2011 after shutting down. The dispensary dropped its claim for damages last month, and the city appealed White’s ruling.
Quintanilla said appeals can take up to a year — by which time the California Supreme Court is expected to rule on several cases relating to medical marijuana dispensaries, including whether cities can ban dispensaries.
In May, the city was sued by another dispensary, Remedy Inc., after the
city denied its application to occupy a space on Highway 111, basing its denial
on its dispensary ban. That case was pending in federal court in Los Angeles,
Quintanilla said.
Rhea previously told CNS that in the Safe Access Wellness Center case,
the city is “re-litigating what they already lost” because of White’s ruling
that the city’s ban was illegal.
“The state … is very clear — patients have reasonable access to medical marijuana,” he said. Rhea said the dispensary’s operators are happy to
relocate or change hours, “and the city just says no.”
He said the dispensary opened near Eisenhower Medical Center because a
lot of chemotherapy patients had recommendations for medical marijuana from the hospital.