GIGA GRANADA HILLS

Junior Martinez The medical marijuana ordinance recently passed by the Los Angeles City Council that left many Los Angeles dispensary owners scrambling to relocate will not affect Granada Hills' sole dispensary. California Herbal Providers, located on Chatsworth Street near Encino Avenue, is already in compliance with the ordinance's land-use restrictions, which require dispensaries to be at least 1,000 feet from other dispensaries, schools, parks and libraries, and not adjacent to or directly across a street or alley from residences. There is an alley adjacent to residences behind CHP's building, but there is a parking lot between CHP's building and the alley. "It's going to be a never-ending thing. Every day it's something new," says owner Junior Martinez of the recently passed ordinance. "But I'm okay at least for the next few weeks."

A few short months ago, I reported that Granada Hills had more medical marijuana dispensaries than it did Starbucks. That is true no longer. The landscape has quickly changed over the course of the past five months, and now there's only one place left in town to legally buy pot. One might think that any business owner would be pleased to have all of his competition eliminated. But Junior Martinez, the owner of California Herbal Providers, or CHP, located on Chatsworth near Encino Avenue, is actually feeling a lot of pressure, because he knows that as the last man standing, he's under intense scrutiny. "We're the only people they're watching -- and they're watching us like a hawk," he says. In the recent sweep that shut down every Granada Hills dispensary but one, how did CHP wind up as the sole survivor? "Because we play by the rules," Junior says plainly. "I'm not just some neighborhood drug dealer. We have all of our permits, we ...