Pot clinics sprout up

A message scribbled in red Magic Marker on a paper bag wedged into the battered white door at Orange County Collective Service instructs visitors to “say hello” for service.

Tucked in a pothole-riddled alleyway in a rundown Westside shopping center, the collective is one of a growing number of medical marijuana dispensaries and clubs that have opened recently in Costa Mesa.

The door opens onto a small foyer adorned with a multicolored Bob Marley tapestry. Inside, a pungent smell of marijuana wafts from behind a second, heavier door. A large white-and-blue sign above the entryway proclaims “members only.”

“I don’t have marijuana here. I have medicine,” said John “Dreaming Hawk” Barona, a manager at Orange County Collective Services. “There are terminally ill people who can’t function without this stuff. There is a need for this to be here.”

The collective, which has been open for two or three months, already has about 100 members, he said.

Barona insists that although Costa Mesa has an ordinance prohibiting marijuana dispensaries, everything at the collective is on the up and up.

“I had an attorney set everything up,” he said. “The cops know we’re here.”

Clients pay a suggested donation for medical marijuana that is “donated” by other members of the collective, Barona said.

“We’re not a dispensary. Dispensaries are like liquor stores — anybody can come in — but we’re a private club,” Barona said. “We’re more like Costco.”

Anywhere from seven to nine medical marijuana dispensaries and collectives are open for business in Costa Mesa, according to Costa Mesa police, who acknowledge that all are operating in violation of a city ordinance that bans establishments that distribute cannabis.

Many of the dispensaries and collectives have obtained business licenses from the city of Costa Mesa to operate as alternative health and nutrition businesses, the Daily Pilot has learned.

Medical marijuana has been decriminalized in California since voters passed Prop. 215 in 1996, but the Costa Mesa City Council passed an ordinance in July 2005 that bars marijuana dispensaries from setting up shop.