At least some of the hundreds of pot shops that were outlawed by the L.A. City Council are probably out of the woods: The body on Friday voted to start a process that will amend its dispensary ordinance so that about 180 cannabis retailers would be allowed to stay open.

It turned out that the council's dispensary ordinance, passed earlier this year, would have unwittingly put all but 40 such businesses out of the pot game because it required them to have the same management since 2007.

The new rule would soften that requirement so that dispensaries that registered with the city before a 2007 moratorium on new pot shops (which ended up being fruitless anyway) could stay alive.

That would put the number of dispensaries in L.A., once at about 545, at about 180.

The City Attorney's office was directed to write up the new loophole, which would allow (warning, technical language) cannabis retailers to stay open if they are …

” … still owned, in whole or in part, by at least one of the owners it identified in its registration…or meets all of the following: registered as a California nonprofit corporation prior to June 7, 2010; has been in good standing since its incorporation, and; had an officer or board member as of June 7, 2010, who was identified as an owner in its

registration.”

The city's pot-shop law was designed to eventually whittle down the number of these fine establishments to 70 as some of them go out of business or are outlawed because they're too close to schools and such.

We'll see.

-With reporting from City News Service. Got news? Email us. Follow us on Twitter, too: @dennisjromero.

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