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File Number: 12 -341 (200 Cal.App.4th 885), Division 2 of the Fourth District Court of Appeal upheld a local ordinance that banned medical marijuana dispensaries in the City of Riverside. The California Supreme Court granted review of the Riverside case, as well as Pack v. Superior Court (City of Long Beach as the Real Party in Interest), which holds that Federal law pre -empts State law in certain aspects of medical marijuana dispensary regulation) in January 2012. Those cases have not yet been set for hearing. In February 2012, however, Division 3 of the Fourth District struck down a city's ban on medical marijuana dispensaries in City of Lake Forest v. Evergreen Holistic Collective (203 Cal.App.4th 1413). In both Riverside and Lake Forest, the cities brought abatement actions against local dispensaries, arguing that their operations violated zoning codes and were consequently per se public nuisances. Riverside's zoning code expressly prohibits medical marijuana dispensaries within the city, while Lake Forest's zoning code prohibits "uses that were not enumerated" within it. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in the Lake Forest decision on May 16, 2012. The appeals court in City of Riverside found that Riverside's zoning ordinance banning dispensaries did not contradict the two California medical marijuana statutes that permit them, the Compassionate Use Act (CUA) and the Medical Marijuana Program Act (MMPA). It held that although the MMPA expressly declared that dispensaries are not subject to nuisance prosecution under state nuisance laws, this prohibition on prosecution did not extend to local nuisance laws. Accordingly, Riverside could ban dispensaries under its own law. The court followed precedent for a narrow reading of Civil Code section 3482, which provides that "nothing which is done ... under the express authority of a statute can be deemed a nuisance," noting that the state marijuana statutes do not prohibit zoning bans on marijuana dispensaries. The court further held that State law did not expressly or implicitly occupy the field of marijuana regulation to the exclusion of local controls. The court in City of Lake Forest reached the opposite conclusion, holding that that city's ban on dispensaries directly conflicted with State law. The court held that the CUA and MMPA precluded all nuisance prosecutions, not only state nuisance prosecutions. It further ruled that Civil Code section 3482, even when narrowly read, barred Lake Forest's nuisance suit because dispensary activity is exactly the activity legislatively authorized by the CUA and MMPA. The ruling in City of Lake Forest is narrow. The court construed the MMPA and CUA only to authorize dispensaries that also contain grow- sites. Thus, dispensaries operating in isolation from grow -sites are not protected from public nuisance suits. The court also cautioned that state law only preempts complete bans on medical marijuana dispensaries within a city; it does not prevent cities from restricting the locations of dispensaries or otherwise regulating them. On July 2, 2012, the Court of Appeal for the Second Appellate District, Division One, issued its ruling in County of Los Angeles v. Alternative Medicinal Cannabis Collective et al. (2012 Cal.App.LEXIS 772). This case held that Los Angeles County's complete ban on the establishment of medical marijuana collectives and cooperatives within the County was pre - empted by the State's Compassionate Use Act and Medical Marijuana Program Act. Because the California Supreme Court granted certiorari to the City of Riverside, City of Lake Forest and Pack v. City of Long Beach appellate decisions, which thereby rendered them not citable because they had been superceded by the California Supreme Court's grant of review, this case (County of Los Angeles) is the current law as it relates to cities and counties City of San Leandro Page 3 Printed on 711012012