All Pot Shops Closed in Chatsworth, Northridge, Granada Hills

While the city mulls an outright ban on medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles, police in the north San Fernando Valley have already essentially enacted a ban of their own, shutting down all pot shops in Northridge, Granada Hills and , it was reported Wednesday.

As part of a three-year crackdown, narcotics officers with the Los Angeles Police Department's Devonshire Division on Monday shuttered the last of the dispensaries in the area, arresting three owners of a Chatsworth operation on suspicion of felony possession of marijuana for sale, the Daily News reported.

facility in the 10100 block of Topanga Canyon Boulevard made more than $600,000 in profit last year, LAPD Detective Robert Holcomb told the newspaper. The dispensaries are required by state law to be nonprofits, with collective members all contributing to the growing and harvesting of the drug.

"We heard a tremendous outcry from the community that they were absolutely opposed to this," Councilman Mitch Englander, who represents the communities where all the dispensaries have been shut down, told the Daily News. "It's great to not have a single one."

There were about 60 dispensaries in those communities at the height of the pot shop boom, drawing numerous complaints from locals who reported littering and loitering around the locations. City officials cited an increase in robberies, thefts and assaults as an impetus for a crackdown on pot shops, the Daily News reported.

Officials estimate that another 200 dispensaries remain open in the San Fernando Valley.

Authorities are looking to expand Devonshire's enforcement efforts to the rest of the Valley, according to Englander, who chairs the city's Public Safety Committee.

"This is a public safety issue that affects every community that they set up shop in," he told the Daily News. "It's not just littering and loitering; it's bringing in all kinds of elements to our neighborhood."

-- City News Service