“Daniel Halbert moved here from Phoenix this year to invest his life savings in what he hoped was a golden opportunity: the medical-marijuana business. But on Tuesday, the Los Angeles City Council told him to shut down his dispensary, part of a broad crackdown against a growing and unregulated marijuana industry. More than 600 dispensaries have taken advantage of a loophole in city regulations to open shop here in the past two years. The unchecked growth has alarmed some city leaders. The Rainforest Collective, a small Los Angeles shop, dispenses medical marijuana but it’s facing possible closure from the city council. Sabrina Shankman reports. ‘They were like a rash,’ said City Councilman Ed Reyes, who is leading the effort to shut down many of the dispensaries. He said a colleague told him that at one dispensary near a high school, the student crowds outside made the pot store look ‘like an ice cream shop from the 1950s.’” (07/07/09)