[420 Girl]

Medical marijuana activists hoping to overturn a Los Angeles ordinance that caps the number of dispensaries failed to collect enough signatures to force a referendum on the new law.

City election officials said Friday that the group turned in 24,031 signatures, falling short of the needed 27,425. Organizers estimated that they had collected about 30,000 signatures. Election officials also said 274 of the 564 petition booklets were disqualified because they did not include the affidavits signed by the circulators, which reduced the total count to 11,391.

"It's done," said Tom Reindel, an administrator in the election division. Reindel said that it took 36 people about 26 hours to complete the review. "We were extremely careful and detailed and did double and triple checks. We wanted to make sure it was right."

Nathan Hoffman, the lawyer for the coalition of collectives, acknowledged the petition drive was flawed, but said that could have been corrected if the group had been given an extension. "There are some issues there with how they went about it," he said. "If they had had more time, 10 more days, and used professional signature-gatherers, I think they would have prevailed."

The effort's coordinator, Dan Halbert, who runs Rainforest Collective in Mar Vista, had asked for an extension, but city officials denied the request, saying they had no authority to grant one.

Hoffman said the collectives were reviewing their legal options to challenge the ordinance that will force hundreds of dispensaries to close. "This is really just too draconian," he said.

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