The L.A. City Council just voted 14-0 to ban marijuana dispensaries in the city, and it's a move that may or may not mean anything for the 900 or so dispensaries that have sprung up down there. L.A., you see, has a bigger "problem" with pot clubs than San Francisco ever had, largely because they proliferated on a much huger scale, and the city has had to backpedal to deal with it. Los Angeles County instituted a ban on the clubs two years ago, but that was struck down by an appellate court.

There are 762 dispensaries registered with the City, and they believe there could be about 200 more that are unregistered. One city councilman has proposed an ordinance that would grandfather in the 180 pot clubs that existed before the city tried to issue a moratorium on them several years ago. Those OG dispensaries might be safe in this current round, but there's also been an appellate ruling that will support the city's definition of a pot "collective" as being three or fewer people, should some of the challenged pot clubs try to sue the city over the threatened closures.

This is all happening, of course, as San Francisco's dispensaries remain in a kind of limbo, though for now the Feds have been quiet ever since shutting down Oaksterdam University and seeing to the closure of the Vapor Room in the Lower Haight. A couple dozen dispensaries remain, a few of which, like HopeNet in SoMa, have received threatening letters from the Feds but have not been forcibly shut down.

[SF Gate]