Neon pot-leaf signs like this are a no-no at D.C. dispensaries.

Rabbi Jeffrey Kahn and wife Stephanie Kahn have a simple plan for bankrolling their controversial proposed medical-marijuana facility on Blair Road NW. "We plan on financing this from our personal life savings," he says.

How much are we talking? Well, that's a bit, um, hazy at the moment.

The biggest expense will likely be the price of the herbal remedy itself, according to Stephen DeAngelo, executive director of Harborside Health Center in Oakland, Calif., which both Rabbi Kahn and fellow aspiring dispensary operators with the nonprofit District of Columbia Patients' Cooperative have toured in preparation for creating their own facilities. DeAngelo tells City Desk, "Out of every dollar we take in, about 62 percent of that goes to paying for the actual medicine. The balance of that goes towards paying our rent, our payroll, our insurance—all the other typical expenses that a business has."

While not a single legal pot plant is yet in production in the District, thus making the budgeting process quite difficult for would-be sellers, we can safely assume that all other costs aren't even the half of it. That said, Mayor Adrian Fenty's proposed medical-marijuana regulations at least provide specifics about some of the other start-up costs:

• The annual fee for a medical marijuana dispensary registration shall be ten thousand dollars ($10,000) + an initial application processing fee of five thousand dollars ($5,000)

If you plan on growing your own, tack on an additional ten grand:

• The annual fee for a cultivation center registration shall be five thousand dollars ($5,000) + an initial application processing fee of five thousand dollars ($5,000)

Next, you'll need to register all your corporate partners...

• The annual fee for each director, officer, member, incorporator, or agent registration shall be two hundred dollars ($200)

And every "bud-tender" on staff:

• The annual fee for an employee registration shall be seventy five dollars ($75)
• The annual fee for a Manager's license shall be one hundred and fifty dollars ($150)

You may also need a permit for moving the medicine between manufacturing and distributing facilities:

• The fee for a transport permit shall be twenty-five dollars ($25)

Not included in the regs: your necessary certificate of occupancy ($33 application fee).

Then there's the whole matter of rent. According to real estate analysts Delta Associates, the average retail rent in D.C. (as of the end of 2009) is about $35 per square foot annually. For a modest 1,500-square-foot dispensary, such as the one the Kahns are proposing, that works out to roughly $4,375 each month, or $52,500 for the whole year. (Add on an additional month's rent for the probable security deposit.)

Next up, payroll. The proposed regs specify that each dispensary "shall be staffed with at least two persons during its hours of operation," with those hours of operation being anytime between 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week. Let's say you open on a more limited basis, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. A dispensary employing two staffers at all times (minimum wage: $8.25 per hour) would thus run up at least $1,155 in weekly payroll (or, $60,060 annually).

Then there's security to think about. The Kahns, for instance, are planning to hire an off-duty cop to monitor the premises, beginning from a half hour before opening until a half hour after closing. A police officer working "reimburseable detail," as it's called, runs about $55 an hour—roughly three times the price of your average security guard. Let's say you go the cheaper route ($18 per hour); that's $1,386 per week (or, $72,072 annually).

Already, we're looking at well over $200,000, without even factoring in the cost of the required video cameras and alarm system, insurance, a good licensing lawyer—and, most importantly, the pot itself. If we accept DeAngelo's 62-percent figure on the cost of product, then we're talking around half a million dollars (if my math is correct).

In its own financial impact statement, the District predicted the average cost of marijuana sold at dispensaries at about $350 per ounce. Therefore, a dispensary would need to sell about 1,429 ounces of herb annually to cover its basic costs.  That's about 119 ounces per month. Patients, meanwhile, are limited to just two ounces per month, and the District expects to register only 300 patients citywide in the first year. Which means dispensary owners may need to dip into their own inventory to make the math look right.

Witness the hoopla surrounding the opening of Georgetown's newfangled Apple store on Friday afternoon. Special correspondent Kim Chi Ha reports rather appropriately via iPhone: "Lol there's like 30 ppl in line already," she texts at 3:33 p.m. "It's hot as fuck out here."

3:31 p.m.-Let's see how long my fully charged phone lasts until it dies.

3:37 p.m.-"Only an hour and 24 minutes left," one geek in line says to another. One of them is carrying both an iPhone and a Mac. And they're either staring at me, or the Nine West display.

3:53p.m.-Dude has a "Thank you, Steve" shirt. Don't see any picketers from Amanda's story.

3:54p.m.-God, these people in line have to be miserable. It's sweltering.

Inside the store

4:11p.m.-Inside the store. [It pays to be in media; you other suckers are still in line!] Senior store leader Ilene Magee says the company has no plans to open any other locations in D.C. Yet. No special deals but shit is nice yo. Unique feature is the courtyard where the screens are 82 inches.

4:17 p.m.-They gave us free water

4:19 p.m.-Free t-shirt to first 1,000 customers. Hurry!

4:29 p.m.-Richard Lawson, No. 2 in line, says, "I thought I was gonna get a free iPod. I already got a t-shirt."

4:30 p.m.-My phone's got a bit less than half a battery life left. Damn Steve Jobs

4:31 p.m. "It's hot like bacon out here," says the first guy in line, who identifies himself as Zeus Shytbagh. (Probably not his real name.) Turns out, his uncle works here and he didn't even know! "He could've gotten me a job," says Zeus. The second guy in line isn't so bothered by the heat. "I'm in a long sleeve shirt. I'm good. This cool," he says. "I could stand out here in a leather jacket. We been out here since 1:30."  The velvet rope next to him keeps coming loose from its pole.

4:32 p.m.-Line is down to M Street. Make that, wrapping around M Street. Gotta be over 100.

4:36 p.m.-Protesters show up. "Enough" is the name of the organization. Protest to end genocide and crimes against humanity.

4:40 p.m.- [via email] Shit I think too many ppl r texting. It stopped going thru. Also I'm charging my phone in the store

4:53 p.m.-"No life is worth more than a penny," says demonstrator Gregory Rockson (pictured left) Also: I think I'm getting suburned. At least I got a free t-shirt!

4:56 p.m.-300 ppl in line. 300 iPhones. A mugger's dream!

4:59 p.m.-Store opens to the public.

Photos from Kim Chi Ha's iPhone

Get ready for bulk tube socks, massive packages of toilet paper, and giant tubs of rugelach—Costco is finally coming to D.C.!

At-Large Councilmember Kwame Brown claims that Costco has "finalized an agreement" with developers that would bring a store to Fort Lincoln, according to the Washington Post's Tim Craig. The site is near the intersection of New York and South Dakota Avenues NE.

The Costco has been in the works for upwards of five years, and LL claims some credit for breaking the impasse in Costco negotiations. His "How to Beat Costco" guide for local retailers appeared in last week's Washington City Paper shopping issue. Clearly it had them running scared.

The District of Columbia is about a month away from having to pay five cents a pop for its plastic bags, and some details are yet to be worked out.

Such as: What about the self-checkout facilities increasingly populating city supermarkets—how are they going to work with the bag fee? After all, there's no human to control the bagging process there. Who's to stop some earth-hating customer from triple bagging his junk and absconding with 45 cents worth of free polyethylene?

Human oversight? Defeats the point of self-checkout. Honor system? Would certainly be dishonored. Complicated technological contraption? That would be complicated.

City Desk phoned the two largest operators of self-checkout facilities in the District—Safeway and Giant. Neither, according to their respective spokespersons, have yet figured out how to implement the bag fee at self-checkouts.

Safeway spokesperson Craig Muckle describes a behind-the-scenes Manhattan Project-like effort at his employer. Corporate executives have had several meetings on the matter, he says, and are close to working out a solution.

Though Muckle says he's been in on the talks, he declines any of the possibilities in detail—though he does mention that a solution icould pontentially involve human employees who are currently tasked with overseeing the self-checkout stands at Safeway stores.

Same goes for Giant. That dominant local grocer is also undecided on a solution to the self-checkout quandary, spokesperson Kim Brown says: "We are working on a couple of different options, but we'll definitely have a system in place."

Brown, too, declines to details what those options might be. But she gives some parameters: "We're hoping that it's going to be simple for customers to use and easy for us to track."

Read: They have no idea! PANIC!

Colbert King recently wrote a column on the racial paranoia bubbling up on Cleveland Park's listserv. He followed up our own blog post on the subject. Whether residents there are racist or not we can not say. Those stories only prove that people still live in Cleveland Park. There are always the holdouts.

Video and more, below the jump!

With all the bad news surrounding Cleveland Park, we were a bit scared to visit its Connecticut Ave. strip. Had it succumbed to a sort of lawlessness? Were people freaking out over their 'hood losing its Slurpee machine? Would there even be anyone around to talk to? Had its residents started migrating to the hipper Van Ness, a neighborhood that can actually support a Starbucks?

One thing we did prove: You can still get a parking ticket in Cleveland Park.

The 42 wonders if it's possible to feel claustrophobic in a wide-open space. The writer experienced serious Cherry Blossom gridlock: "Just looking at the gridlocked car (and baby stroller) traffic around me was enough to cause anxiety. Sidewalks were jammed. We moved at more of a shuffle than a walk. And there was no way out. Once you decided to go with the flow, well, you were there for the long run. All par for the course for a beautiful Saturday at the National Cherry Blossom Festival."

Diary of a Mad DC Cabbie explains why they haven't updated the blog in some time:

"Last September while reading his Sunday paper my dad felt kind of dizzy and checked in a hospital. After a short battle with cancer on March 4th around 9:08pm with all his children by his side, my father passed away peacefully at home few minutes after he asked us to play one of Wes Montgomery's CD.

The last six month was sad and sweet for me. I spent every single day with him crying, laughing and rewinding our lives. I think it was the most unforgettable time of my life and I am hoping that I come out as a much better individual out of this experience...."

DCist gets a first look at Pho 14 in Columbia Heights. The Heights Life couldn't get into the jammed Pho place. Meanwhile our own Young & Hungry sees some downsizing in the Bear Claw market.

Wonkette writes on the news that the Late Night Shots-based show is finally airing this summer.

Prince of Petworth wonders about retail at Harvard and Sherman.

Attention local urban sophisticates! You will not be able to visit an Apple Store in the District of Columbia anytime soon!

That scoop comes courtesy of the underappreciated, under-Webbed Current newspapers, which explained in last week's editions [PDF, see pp. 1 and 19] that plans for the District's first Apple Store are held up in a thicket of regulatory approvals, from the Georgetown advisory neighborhood commission and the Old Georgetown Board.

Earlier this month, both bodies rejected Apple's design—the third the company had submitted for the property at 1229 Wisconsin Ave. NW, a Georgetown storefront the company has owned for more than a year—because, as the Current's Carol Buckley puts it, it "would not fit into Georgetown."

Nay, not even this testimonial, delivered by an Apple project manager, can cut through the red tape: "Steve saw this design and really loves it."

That's Steve Jobs, people. Steve Jobs!

When will you hoity-toity bureaucrats wake up and realize that when Steve Jobs loves something, that means you must love it, too?

The Current describes said design as such: "a glass first story with a solid stone upper facade punctuated by a large window shaped like Apple's logo." The Old Georgetown Board, charged with preserving historic preservation standards, "felt that the design turned the building into a billboard," according to a spokesperson. The ANC, charged with being parochial nitwits, raised concerns that the latest design was "too modern."

What are you missing out on, obstructionist Georgetowners? Well, as the Washington Business Journal put it in 2007, you're missing the "one retail store that any town, and any developer, covets above all others. A store with such cachet that any retail center blessed enough to land one becomes instantly certified as a platinum-level shopping mecca, with clientele who are urbane, savvy and have loads of disposable income."

Georgetown, though, does not covet thy neighbor's urbane, savvy, income-disposing customers—got plenty of those already.

So suck it, Jobs! Shoulda gone to Chinatown!

Flickr photo by ping ping