Alhambra outlawed marijuana dispensaries, but at least two self-proclaimed churches are selling it

From Valley Boulevard, Alhambra Faith and Unity looks like a small, new church in the shadow of the Pyrenees Castle.

The banner on the building at 2387 W. Valley Blvd. bears the “folded hands” emoji, which look like two hands clasped in prayer, with rays of light emanating from behind it.

But just inside, parishioners won’t find a chapel — instead, there’s a dimly lit waiting room thick with the scent of marijuana and a blacked-out receptionists window behind which someone asks, “First time or returning patient?”

Despite the fact that Alhambra banned marijuana dispensaries in September, several have cropped up in the city since then, all of which have billed themselves as churches.

Since Californians voted in 2016 to legalize recreational marijuana use and sales, many cities have established local laws to govern which commercial cannabis activities they will allow.

In September, Alhambra banned all recreational marijuana land uses and only allowed the delivery of medical marijuana to a patient’s primary caregiver in Alhambra, though new regulations enacted by the State Bureau of Cannabis Control last week bars cities from preventing the delivery of marijuana or its related products on public roads.

Weedmaps, a website that tracks marijuana businesses and their pricing, lists two dispensaries in Alhambra — Alhambra Faith and Unity and Cali Releaf Church of Mien Tao.

Alhambra Faith and Unity bills itself as a Rastafarian church whose sacrament is marijuana. Cali Releaf professes no such faith on its website, which describes it as an “herb shop.”

Unlike Alhambra Faith and Unity, Cali Releaf, 425 S. Garfield Ave., does not advertise itself on its building and instead has kept signage from the previous business — a SAT-prep tutoring center — on its papered-over windows. The building does not feature an entrance on Garfield, and a security guard approaches anyone who heads toward the entrance ad the rear of the building.

Representatives from both organizations did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

As far as the city is concerned, the two are simply illegally operating marijuana dispensaries, and the city is treating them as such, City Manager Jessica Binnquist said.

“When only medical marijuana was legal, a dispensary might pop up here or there, but they’d usually move on eventually,” Binnquist said. “Dispensaries are being much bolder these days, going so far as to name themselves churches instead of trying to hide their presence.”

Similar operations across Southern California, such as the Vault Church of Open Faith in Jurupa Valley, have attempted to use the church label as a protection against being shut down but have seen little legal support.

In August, a Riverside Superior Court judge gave Jurupa Valley the legal authority to shut down the Vault Church of Open Faith, which also claimed to distribute marijuana as a religious sacrament.

“(The judge) didn’t understand why we had to have cannabis,” lead minister Gilbert Aguirre said in August. “It’s like asking Catholics to worship without bread and wine.”

The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department raided a similar operation, Jah Healing Kemetic Temple of The Divine Church, in April.

With legal precedent and best practices for shutting down unpermitted marijuana dispensaries still being developed, Alhambra has taken a more methodical approach to addressing the so-called churches, Binnquist said.

The city’s code enforcement staff has partnered with Alhambra police in an attempt to shut the dispensaries down as unpermitted businesses. That approach was successful in forcing out two businesses, including one called the Alhambra Church of Cannabis. Code enforcement staff went as far as to change the locks on the business, and while the operators changed the locks again in October so they could continue, they eventually gave up and left the city, Binnquist said.

Those same tactics haven’t worked with Cali Releaf, Police Chief Timothy Vu said. The business keeps coming back despite Alhambra Police Department’s best efforts, and the matter is working its way through the court system, Vu said.

“It’s very frustrating,” Vu said. “We’re trying to do what we can under the law to get them to shut down, but the case is stuck in the legal system right now.”

The city is looking to change its approach when handling the more recently opened Alhambra Faith and Unity in an effort to expedite the process of shutting it down, Vu said.

“We have been aggressive and will continue to be aggressive to make sure they shut down and move on,” Binnquist said.