The city of Claremont and Darrell Kruse remained locked in a court battle over Kruse's now-closed medical marijuana operation. Tony Krickl had an article the March 15th edition of the Claremont Courier reporting that the City and City Attorney Sonia Carvalho had been unable to reach an agreement with Kruse that would have allowed the two parties to settle the matter.
The Krickl article indicated that in January the City had sought $15,000 in fines and legal fees from Kruse, but by March had reduced their offer to no fines or penalties and no legal fees. Kruse turned that down, the article said:
The city earlier this week made another offer to Mr. Kruse that would release him of responsibility to repay any outstanding fines or penalties associated with operating his dispensary without a business license, City Attorney Sonia Carvalho said. Under the deal, Mr. Kruse would also not be responsible for the city’s legal expenses in handling his case.
“The reason was primarily because Mr. Kruse is no longer operating [his business,]” Ms. Carvalho said.
Mr. Kruse has not been in business in Claremont since February 2007, when a Pomona court judge ordered him to cease operations.
The last ditch effort by the city to settle the case was rejected by Mr. Kruse, who is ready to battle it out in front of a judge. He said that since he already invested so much in legal fees, more than $70,000 thus far, he did not want to back down now.
“I paid for the party, I might as well go and dance,” Mr. Kruse said.
According to the article, the hold up was Kruse's insistence that if he agreed to let the city drop the matter, the city would need to allow him to become Claremont's sole provider of medical marijuana under the city ordinance that is still being crafted.
The fact that Claremont is trying to get a medical marijuana ordinance passed forced the City Attorney to do some fancy footwork since the City had argued previously that Kruse's business was prohibited because marijuana use is illegal under federal law. Attorney Carvalho is now arguing that Kruse is guilty of operating his marijuana dispensary without a city business license.
The article also said that the draft marijuana ordinance is nearly complete, and that it should go before the City Council on April 8th. Mayor Ellen Taylor, and Councilmembers Linda Elderkin and Sam Pedroza had previously indicated support for such an ordinance. Elderkin's support was contingent on limiting the number of dispensaries to one.
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