How Do Marijuana Dispensaries in North Hollywood Impact Crime?

Because of the to ban medical marijuana dispensaries throughout Los Angeles, Patch has been investigating the facts about the impact of dispensaries on our community.

The opposition to the proliferation of dispensaries throughout North Hollywood and the rest of the city is centered on the claim that the presence of dispensaries drives up crime in neighborhoods.

As someone who lives, and is raising a son, less than a block from two of the weed stores, I wanted to know if it was true.

Still, the California Police Chiefs Association insist dispensaries are bad news. In a 2009 White Paper report, they wrote:  

"Marijuana dispensaries are commonly large money-making enterprises that will sell marijuana to most anyone. ... While the dispensaries will claim to receive only donations, no marijuana will change hands without an exchange of money. These operations have been tied to organized criminal gangs, foster large grow operations, and are often multi-million-dollar profit centers. Because they are repositories of valuable marijuana crops and large amounts of cash, several operators of dispensaries have been attacked and killed by armed robbers both at their storefronts and homes, and such places have been regularly burglarized.”

But a new UCLA report shows this to be inaccurate. In an extremely comprehensive analysis of the the criminal impact of dispensaries, UCLA teamed up with the National Institute on Drug Abuse to get to the heart of this issue.

UCLA’s Nancy J. Kepple and Bridget Freisthler published their study this month in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. They found that the presence of dispensaries plays no detectable role in terms of increasing crime in a neighborhood.

Kepple said that many states are doing this research now out of concerns that the proliferation of dispensaries and their customers will become crime targets.

“The reality,” she wrote, “is we haven’t had any evidence to support those claims.”

Similarly, the Rand Corporation last year did their own study on the subject, and not only came to the same conclusion, but wrote that the closing of dispensaries can have an adverse effect on a neighborhood:

“Contrary to conventional wisdom, press accounts, and some statements by law enforcement, our analysis suggests that the closing of the medical marijuana dispensaries is associated with an increase—rather than the expected decrease—in local crime in a short-term ten-day period. Overall crime increased almost 60 percent in the blocks surrounding closed clinics in the ten days following their closing.”

The Rand Corporation later withdrew this study, stating that their research was faulty.

Most dispensary owners in North Hollywood suggest the ban is a political stunt by the City Council designed to appease their constituents, but with no valid evidence to support their claims.

“We have been in this neighborhood almost a year now,” said Chuck Johnson, the owner of NoHo Trees on Vantage Avenue. “We have never once had any problems with the law. We are well-lit, we are safe, we abide by all the regulations. We have a steady customer base which appreciates our location, and we provide a real service to this community. Repeated studies show over and over that if you remove the dispensaries, the sales go back on the streets, and crime increases. We are doing a legal business here, we have never broken any laws, and yet we’re being hounded by the City Council. And why? What have we done wrong?”

There are some dispensary owners, however, who feel the ban is actually a good idea. , who has owned and operated the , said, “I think it’s a good idea. I think they have a good reason for controlling the proliferation of the shops. It’s gotten out of control, when they’re on every corner, and you can walk to twenty within a three-block radius, I think we have a problem. I think the City Council had to do something.”

Sheftel, who is also the owner of the , which has been operating on Magnolia Boulevard in North Hollywood since 1991, ran for City Council in 2008. Many of the concerns about dispensaries, he said, are valid.

“I think there are some legitimate complaints,” he said. “I have seen kids hanging around, asking people to go in and buy for them. I’ve seen people smoking around dispensaries. That giant Savon sign next to the carwash at Oxnard and Laurel Canyon, it’s so in your face, I don’t think they should be surprised the city brought down a hammer on them.”

Many residents who live nearby many pot stores worry it will hurt their neighborhood. 

"I don't like to see them so close to my home," said Robert Link, 58, who lives in North Hollywood. "I can't believe that they don't bring a bad element into our neighborhood. And I do not think they are good for our property values."

Link, who works in West Hollywood, is resigned in his belief that no opposition will stop their proliferation.

"They are everywhere," he said. "It's obviously a huge business. And I don't mind this business going on. I just don't want it on every corner in my neighborhood." 

Patch contacted Councilman Tom LaBonge to ask him why he voted for the ban. His press deputy Scott Levine emailed back: “The Councilman has no further statement at this time. He reiterates his support of a ‘soft ban’ on dispensaries.”