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Local governments have a traditional land use and police power to allow, restrict, limit, or exclude certain types of businesses. For example, they might ban strip clubs within 100 feet of a school. This inherent power is granted wide deference by the courts and local zoning regulations are ordinarily upheld unless they conflict with state laws.

Medical marijuana laws in California have been narrowly interpreted in a variety of contexts, from criminal cases to the present zoning case. The Compassionate Use Act of 1996 and the Medical Marijuana Program have created exceptions in criminal law for those cultivating, prescribed or prescribing marijuana, and have prevented the use of state nuisance actions to shut down marijuana dispensaries.

The California Supreme Court ruled last week that a Long Beach ordinance couldn’t save the seaside city from a tax refund lawsuit.

Long Beach resident John McWilliams sued the city on behalf of himself and similarly-situated individuals, challenging the city’s telephone users tax (TUT) and seeking refund of taxes paid.

He claimed that Long Beach Municipal Code Section 3.68.50(d) exempted from the TUT all amounts that “are exempt or not subject to” the federal excise tax on telephone service and that the city has been mischaracterizing the charges subject to the federal excise tax for some time. The city claimed that a local ordinance barred his class action.

A California Appellate Court clarified that it's easier to steal acquire land from a religious organization than from some other private entity.

That's because an adverse possessor snagging a religious organization's property doesn't have to meet the standard five-year tax requirement.

We'll explain.

This is almost a case of paving paradise and putting up a parking lot.

Almost — because you may not know what you've lost until it's gone, but you can't recover what you never lost.

In a matter of first impression, a California appellate court ruled this week that a business cannot recover for loss of goodwill in an eminent domain action unless the business had goodwill to lose.

We’re going to take a page from Fight Club today.

The first rule of a materialman's lien is that you must serve a preliminary, 20-day notice to foreclose on the lien.

The second rule of a materialman’s lien — you guessed it — is that you must serve a preliminary, 20-day notice to foreclosure on the lien.

The California Supreme Court is set to decide whether medical marijuana dispensaries are a categorical nuisance, reports The Orange County Register.

In March, a California appellate court struck down a local injunction against a medical marijuana dispensary, holding that a city cannot shut down dispensaries as a wholesale nuisance.

The city in question is Lake Forest, California, which used zoning ordinances to force the Evergreen Holistic medical marijuana dispensary out of business. Under the Lake Forest municipal code, a zoning ordinance violation constitutes a per se categorical nuisance, so the city adopted an ordinance stating that "marijuana dispensaries are neither enumerated as a permitted use, nor as any other type of conditional or temporary use in any zoning district in the City."

There are unpleasant issues that come to mind with the phrase, “hot tub time machine.” First, there’s the epic cinematic failure, featuring John Cusack, which we unfortunately watched last year.

Second, there’s the first-world problem of landlords adjusting hot tub heating times in apartment buildings to save money, without passing those savings along to the tenants through rent reduction.

California’s Second Appellate District Court can only resolve one of those hot tub time machine issues, and, sadly, it is not the John Cusack one.

Despite California's reputation a haven for liberal-living, the state's 15-year-old medical marijuana law could be in jeopardy following setbacks from a state appellate court, and the promise of pot dispensary crackdowns from California's four federal prosecutors.

A California appellate court ruled this week that state law does not preempt cities or counties from implementing a marijuana dispensary ban in City of Riverside v. Inland Empire Patient's Health and Wellness Center.

A California Appellate Court ruled last week that a patient who relies on medical marijuana for pain management does not have standing to challenge a city’s decision to close a medical marijuana dispensary.

Plaintiff Malinda Traudt filed suit to obtain a court declaration that Dana Point (City) zoning ordinances that did not expressly recognize California medical marijuana dispensaries as permitted uses constituted a zoning ban on dispensaries and that state law, specifically the Compassionate Use Act and the Medical Marijuana Program Act, preempts cities from adopting zoning bans on dispensaries.

Californians approved medical marijuana in 1996, and considered legalizing pot for the general public in 2010, but some communities are hopeful that a California court decision will reign in medical marijuana dispensaries.

Last week, anti-drug activists won a challenge in Orange County Superior Court in Qualified Patients Association v. City of Anaheim. The plaintiff in the case, an Anaheim pot dispensary, questioned whether a state law enabling collective growers to sell pot through marijuana dispensaries preempts a city ban on the dispensaries.