L.A.'s Medical Marijuana Program Sounds Like "The Godfather"

From today's Los Angeles Times:

“Cities have limited the number of dispensaries in two ways. The most common is to require them to be a certain distance from places that children frequent, such as schools and libraries. That's the approach in the proposed city ordinance. Less common, but gaining in popularity, is a cap on the number of shops.”

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“The proposed Los Angeles ordinance would initially cap the number at the original 186 by requiring other dispensaries to close for six months before applying to reopen.

It also requires dispensaries to be 1,000 feet from each other, schools and other institutions. That would also reduce the number, but city officials are not sure by how much. A study of the 186 concluded that about three-quarters of them would have to move or close.

That has led some council members to suggest a 500-foot setback, but no studies have been done to show how many dispensaries that would allow.”

From "The Godfather" (1972):

ZALUCHI: I want to control it as a business, to keep it respectable. I don't want it near schools -- I don't want it sold to children! That's an infamia. In my city, we would keep the traffic in the dark people -- the colored. They're animals anyway, so let them lose their souls.

BARZINI: Then we are agreed. The traffic in drugs will be permitted, but controlled -- and Don Corleone will give up protection in the East -- and there will be the peace.