Now that Christmas is behind him, City Councilman Jim Clarke can return to encouraging location-worried residents to attend the next Council meeting on placing cannabis retail outlets out of what they regard as harm’s way.

Provisionally, they have a date in Council Chambers for the Monday, Jan. 8 meeting at 7.

“Since we probably will not see the first stores until next fall, there is not a great rush,” said Mr. Clarke. “But I still want to see a turnout to know how much support we have.”

By now, his strongly accented advocacy for placing cannabis retailers in commercial centers rather than dingier venues for health and safety reasons, has flashed back and forth across the community.

Mr. Clarke firmly believes cannabis retail stores should be adjacent to the “Apple and Nordstrom’s” stores to which they have been favorably compared by pro-pot people.

However, the solidly united Council majority of Mayor Jeff Cooper, Vice Mayor Thomas Small and Meghan Sahli-Wells has formed a brick wall against Mr. Clarke’s kind of thinking.

Mr. Cooper, for example, believes that few – or even fewer – Culver City residents give a darn about where pot retailers land.

The mayor would brand the stores harmless.

Mr. Clarke reported last week that Westfield, one of earth’s keenest retailers, already has rejected hosting a pot store in its Fox Hills setting.

If pot stores are so desirable or harmless, Westfield’s turndown “tells you something, too, doesn’t it?” Mr. Clarke asked, rhetorically.

“You would think a marijuana store would bring in customers. Wouldn’t that be good for a mall?

“Or,” he said, hammering on his central point, “is it the feeling of the commercial center owner this type of clientele they don’t want or that pot customers  only will shop at the pot store and nowhere else?”

(To be continued)