Los Angeles council repeals pot dispensary ban

LOS ANGELES The Los Angeles City Council has voted in favor of repealing a ban that was supposed to shutter hundreds of pot dispensaries that have cropped up across the city.

Council members voted 11-2 on Tuesday to negate a vote in July where they decided to rid the nation's second-largest city of pot clinics after advocates gathered enough signatures for a ballot referendum.

The Committee to Protect Patients and Neighborhoods -- a coalition of medical marijuana advocates -- gathered more than 49,000 signatures challenging the law, reports CBS affiliate KCBS in Los Angeles.

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Many cities have struggled with medical marijuana ordinances but none has had a bigger problem than Los Angeles, where pot shops have proliferated. There are an estimated 1,000 dispensaries in the city, reports KCBS. At one point, the city ordered closure of the shops - a process that failed amid lawsuits and conflicting rulings by appellate courts.

The so-called "gentle ban" would have eliminated storefronts but allowed patients and caregivers to grow medical marijuana.