Editorial:

On Jan. 24 the Daily Pilot broke the story on nine Costa Mesa businesses acting as medical marijuana dispensaries — despite a city ban on the distribution of cannabis for medicinal use. These businesses have camouflaged their pot-selling operations by broadly defining their services or products on city forms.

The Costa Mesa Police Department acknowledges that the businesses are operating in violation of a 2005 ordinance prohibiting the dispensaries. But, city officials say, enforcing the ban would be no clear-cut task. City Atty. Kim Barlow points out that the ordinance would be legally hazy to enforce because the businesses in question are doing both lawful and unlawful business.

“There’s nothing to stop a place that says it’s a vitamin shop from opening up,” Police Chief Chris Shawkey told the Pilot.

Orange County Collective Services, for one, states on its business license that it’s in the business of answering telephones for an appliance repair shop.

“I don’t have marijuana here. I have medicine,” proclaimed John “Dreaming Hawk” Barona, a manager there.

He insisted the business is a cooperative, not a dispensary.

City officials say they’re now figuring out what to do about the marijuana-based shops, whatever their form, and will have a plan in place soon. However, another complicating factor is that the Costa Mesa ordinance could face a court challenge.

They’ll need to keep Proposition 215 in mind, the 1996 ballot measure approved by California voters that decriminalized the distribution and sale of marijuana for medical purposes.

Regardless of what you think of Proposition 215, this dallying is unacceptable.

Either provide the resources to enforce the ordinance or get it off the books. Our law enforcement and other city officials have enough to do without the burden of this unfunded mandate.