With Anticipation High, Hollywood Gets Its First Recreational Marijuana Dispensary

HOLLYWOOD (CBSLA) — It's been a month since recreational marijuana became legal in California, and pot consumers have one more city- and state-approved shop where they can buy their pot over the counter in Los Angeles.

MMD, Inc. was open for business Friday, with a long line of eager customers waiting by the time the doors opened at 10 a.m.

"It's been a long time coming," Steve Ashbell of MMD Dispensary told CBS2 News. The shop near the Cahuenga and Sunset in the heart of Hollywood calls itself the first dispensary in the area to get a license from the City of Los Angeles and the State of California for adult use sales of legal marijuana.

He's part of a large chorus of folks calling this the end of marijuana "prohibition."

MMD is one of 98 stores the Los Angeles Dept. of Cannabis Regulation said now have temporary approval to sell recreational pot.

Along with the herb, oils and edibles being sold Friday, employees at MMD were handing out information on what is and isn't legal with the passage of the new law.

For one, people aged 18 and over are allowed to buy medical marijuana with a prescription, but recreational pot requires that a person be at least 21 years old.

Also, people are not allowed to smoke in public under the new law, which came as a surprise to one waiting customer.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah! Because I still light up on the street, it's just I didn't know until right now," the man said.

Ashbell said people can expect the price of recreational pot to be above that for medical marijuana because of state and local taxes.

The City of Los Angeles is trying to work out the kinks in regulating and monitoring legal sales before they begin giving permanent licenses to sellers.