[420 Girl]

CA - After months of debate and false starts, the City Council may finally give the green light to regulations for medical marijuana collectives.

The council on Tuesday will consider three new regulation options, parts of which are opposed by medical marijuana advocates who say the options would be too restrictive for them to properly serve their patients.

The council meets at 5 p.m. in City Hall, 333 W. Ocean Blvd. The meeting can be viewed live in Long Beach on Charter Communications Channel 3, Verizon FiOS channel 21, and online at the city's Web site.

In January, the council approved the creation of regulations that didn't include any requirements on where marijuana can be grown. The law also would require buffer zones around schools, security measures at the collectives, and registration with the city, among other rules.

Shannon's three new alternatives that the council will consider are:

To add that collectives must report where they are cultivating their marijuana and must comply with the same requirements that collectives have, if the site is in Long Beach.

To add that cultivation be required within the city limits, the address must be reported to the city, only collective members can grow marijuana, and the number of collectives would be limited to two for each of the nine council districts.

To combine the previous requirements but allow medical marijuana for Long Beach collectives to be grown anywhere in the county.

Shannon is presenting the new options to the council in response to a presentation last month by representatives from the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office and the Sheriff's Department.

They told the council that not limiting cultivation to within the city limits would make enforcing medical marijuana laws even more difficult than it already is.

If the marijuana must be grown locally, law enforcement officials can at least keep close track of it, the representatives said, sharing the sentiment with the Long Beach Police Department.

Collective operators say it would be difficult to produce enough marijuana in Long Beach for all local patients, that many collectives don't have the means to grow their own plants, and that concentrating cultivation in a few locations would create security risks.

After the law enforcement presentation, the council postponed making a decision so that officials could further evaluate the complex issues involved.

Now, medical marijuana advocates say they want an opportunity to give their own presentation Tuesday, although they have shown up at council meetings in droves for months to air their views.

Carl Kemp, a lobbyist who represents the collectives, said that if one side is going to be given virtually unlimited time to make its case, then so should the other side.

Kemp had asked Mayor Bob Foster's office to allow the collective operators' own experts - Don Duncan, the California director of Americans for Safe Access, and attorney Rick Brizendine - to give a presentation to the council.

That request was denied.

"Your request for extended presentation time was not considered lightly, but concern remains about the precedent set by allowing an unlimited amount of time for a single interest to address the Council during session," the mayor's office responded in an e-mail to Kemp.

However, Kemp said the denial "would be understandable except that the last time the issue was heard there was a single-issue presentation."

"In our view, the best course of action would allow folks to present so that (council members) ... have a chance to make the most informed decision," Kemp said.

He also made a thinly veiled threat of legal action if his group's experts aren't allowed to present.

"I would imagine that our best legal minds will determine what our best course of action would be for us," Kemp said. "I think it's an unnecessarily risky move to not give that hearing."

The possibility of legal action may not be something to take lightly. Last week, medical marijuana advocates filed a lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles, claiming its new marijuana regulations are to restrictive, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Councilman Robert Garcia, who has been against cultivation location restrictions and asked the mayor last month to consider allowing a full presentation from medical marijuana advocates, said he respected the mayor's decision.

Still, he said, "I think more information is better than less."

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