Hawthorne Press Tribune
Herald Publications - El Segundo, Hawthorne, Lawndale & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 61, No. 11 - March 14, 2019
Inside
This Issue
Calendar of Events.............3
Certified & Licensed
Professionals.......................5
Classifieds............................3
Entertainment......................2
Hawthorne Happenings....3
Lawndale..............................4
Legals............................. 4,6,7
Pets........................................5
Real Estate...........................8
Weekend
Forecast
Chevron, LAFC Partnership
Kicks Off at Bud Carson School
The Los Angeles Football Club announced a multi-year partnership with Chevron Corporation to provide access to updated spaces to play soccer. The first refurbishment took place at Bud Carson Middle
School in Hawthorne, which will receive a full-sized grass field complete with updated facility equipment. Students in the photo above took part in training and drills at the recent announcement event led
by LAFC personnel with Chevron officials also on-hand. Photo: LAFC.
City Council Discusses Plans to
Deal with Marijuana Dispensaries
By Derrick Deane
With the presence of marijuana dispensaries
growing in California, the Hawthorne City
Council had a lengthy discussion Tuesday
evening to figure out what its next steps will
be regarding the hot-button issue. Mayor Pro
Tem Olivia Valentine began by stating that
she recently attended a series of workshops
put on by the South Bay Council of Governments
that highlighted new regulations that
will affect cities that previously banned sales
within their limits. Hawthorne is one of those
cities, having passed a ban on non-medical
marijuana sales in 2017.
Valentine said that the City of Los Angeles
allows delivery of cannabis, “but they have
been bedeviled by illegal operators. To discourage
this they have established heavy penalties
against illegal operators, including a $20,000
fine per day against property owners who
rent out their property to illegal operators.”
Valentine stated that the illegal operators
take a substantial amount of business away
from the legal operators, which in turn takes
away from the revenue to the city where the
legal dispensaries are operating. She suggested
that Hawthorne adopt the same $20,000 per
day fine. She surmised that once the illegal
operators start to get hit with the heavy fines,
they are going to move to areas of the county
that have lower or no fines.
Interim City Manager Arnie Shadbehr
agreed that the stiff penalty is a gesture of
good intentions, but felt there is no way to
know if the illegal operators are going to pay
the fine or if they would have enough money
to cover the penalty should the per day total
grow to an exorbitant amount. Compounding
the issue is the added cost to the city’s police
force in enforcing the penalty and keeping
track of illegal operations.
Councilman Alex Monteiro, who also attended
the workshops, approached the issue
from a different angle. He used the example
of a dispensary that recently opened across
the street from Hawthorne’s city limits. “We
now have a dispensary less than 100 feet
from our city,” he said. “Hawthorne is surrounded
by non-incorporated areas and this
is going to impact our city. Are we going
to suck on our thumb and let other people
take advantage of this supposed tax revenue
that we could maybe come up with some
resolutions and policy that says we’re going
to do something because all these cities are
contemplating have dispensaries – Manhattan
Beach, Redondo Beach, even PV, Rolling
Hills. Everybody is coming to line about
allowing dispensaries because they know that
it’s making some money and the state is going
to come up with what is called Track and
Tracing so they can figure out exactly how
much money these dispensaries are making.”
Monteiro continued, “When I was campaigning,
a lot of people asked why [doesn’t]
Hawthorne have dispensaries. I know there
are a lot of legal issues, ups and downs, pros
and cons, but think about it: we’re going to
be surrounded by these non-incorporated areas
and these other cities have them. We’re not
a rich city. Those cities are rich.”
Mayor Alex Vargas added that the way he
is approaching the issue is two-fold: to get rid
of the criminal elements that are infiltrating
the illegal market; and also to regulate the
product from a health and safety concern.
“No matter what your opinion is on the
cannabis issue, the way I look at it is there
are two concerns that I have heard from
law enforcement and a health standpoint,”
Vargas said. “The unregulated ones, the
ones that are illicit -- those ferment a lot of
gang activity near the city of Hawthorne.
Narcotics traffickers are setting up shop.
You’re supposed to be regulated so these
things can eventually be taxed. We want to
make it a mainstream type of a thing that
is controlled, that the product is regulated
to make sure it’s safe, that these narcotics
traffickers and gangs aren’t experimenting
with product that is taking concentrations
to the limit and there could be lethal doses
to what they’re giving out there.”
Vargas added. “I think we need to have a
strong-arm approach to this and give our police
officers and city attorney’s office a weapon
to use against those fly-by-night operations.”
Since marijuana is still illegal on the
federal level, sales are currently cash-only.
This prompted Vargas to call out that even
if legal dispensaries are operating within the
confines of the rules, how is the city to know
if they are paying the correct share of taxes,
only selling to people who are of legal age
to purchase. “Right now we’re saying legal
versus illegal, good versus bad,” Vargas said.
“Who’s to say those that we are assuming are
good are going to be legit? It would nice if
were that way but we don’t know that yet.”
Valentine circled back, saying that she had
some concerns that if the only reason the
City was going to allow legal dispensaries
was for the sake of revenue. “That troubles
me tremendously,” she said. “My feeling
about marijuana is that although there are
studies that can go this way or that way,
whether or not it’s a gateway drug, what
are we telling our children if we uphold the
idea that we’re going to make money off of
something that could eventually harm them
to their detriment.”
Valentine added, “There’s no way that if
you legalize this that you’re only going to
limit it to 21-year-olds. That’s not going
to happen. You can hope that it would and
the legality is that they’re not supposed to
deliver to anyone under 21, but you know
that our high school children will be smoking
it. You know that our elementary school
children will be smoking it. Everybody will
be smoking marijuana. Some will say that it’s
not a gateway drug, they won’t get addicted
to anything else. Maybe they will and maybe
they won’t, but they’ll be in a culture where
it’s considered okay.” •
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