Los Angeles to reset troubled marijuana licensing program

Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday approved a makeover of its widely criticized marijuana licensing program to enlist more operators who endured consequences of nation’s war on drugs. Approved unanimously and without debate, changes are designed to provide an increase in licenses for so-called social-equity operators — people, many of color, who were arrested or convicted of a marijuana-related offense, and lower-income residents who live, or have lived, in neighborhoods marked by high marijuana arrest rates.

Only those applicants would be eligible for new retail and delivery licenses through 2025. One of goals of legal market that kicked off in 2018 was providing an ecomic opportunity for those hit hardest by war on drugs. But program has been broly faulted for failing to deliver.

city is facing a lawsuit charging that it used a skewed system to award potentially lucrative licenses, steering m away from those it was intended to help, including many people of color.

“Black and brown communities ... have been disproportionately impacted, disproportionately policed, and we me a commitment to actively ackwledge those harms and dress harms of drug war,” city’s top marijuana regulator, Cat Packer, said last week. Industry experts say number of retail shops in city, currently about 190, could double over time. Some critics have been pushing city to open way for as many as 800 new licenses.

Or changes would institute a lottery to award retail licenses, rar than a first-come, first-served basis that played a role in lawsuit, permit businesses to relocate while being licensed and streamline application process. Some critics have argued that rules remain open to manipulation and “predatory arrangements,” in which investors could exploit social-equity operators.