LOS ANGELES, CA – OCTOBER 19: Dave Warden, a bud tender at Private Organic Therapy (P.O.T.), a non-profit co-operative medical marijuana dispensary, displays various types of marijuana available to patients on October 19, 2009 in Los Angeles, California. Attorney General Eric Holder announced new guidelines today for federal prosecutors in states where the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes is allowed under state law. Federal prosecutors will no longer trump the state with raids on the southern California dispensaries as they had been doing, but Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley recently began a crackdown campaign that will include raids against the facilities. Cooley maintains that virtually all marijuana dispensaries are in violation of the law because they profit from their product. The city of LA has been slow to come to agreement on how to regulate its 800 to 1,000 dispensaries. Californians voted to allow sick people with referrals from doctors to consume cannabis with the passage of state ballot Proposition 215 in 1996 and a total of 14 states now allow the medicinal use of marijuana. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)
Among the Los Angeles businesses deemed essential and urged to remain open are those with city permits to sell cannabis, authorities said Saturday.
"Under the Mayor's 'Safer-at-Home' Order cannabis businesses are deemed essential and those with temporary approval are authorized to stay open in the City of Los Angeles," the city's Department of Cannabis Regulation said in a COVID-19 update.
That means even cannabis dispensaries with temporary approval may have employees working at their facilities, the update said.
Mayor Eric Garcetti issued a 'Safer at Home' Emergency Order Thursday ordering all Los Angeles residents to stay inside their residences and limit movement outside to that which is absolutely necessary to take care of essential needs.
The order noted: "Certain business operations and activities are exempt from the provisions of this Order, on the grounds that they provide services that are recognized to be critical to the health and well-being of the City."
The order listed as exempt "cannabis dispensaries, or any related and/or ancillary healthcare services, manufacturers and suppliers."
