Medical Marijuana in the News

The debate over medical marijuana clinics in Claremont may be over, but the fight goes on across the state:

The Daily Bulletin had an opinion piece by registered nurse Lanny Swerdlow of the THCF Medical Clinic in Riverside. Swerdlow was responding to another opinion piece in the Bulletin and the San Bernardino Sun (one of the Bulletin's sister papers) by a Kevin Sabet:

The underlying fear that medical marijuana is the camel's nose under the tent of marijuana legalization permeates every word of Sabet's article. This is graphically demonstrated by his red herring that some people might abuse the medical access of marijuana. There is no demand for the prohibition of prescription pharmaceuticals even though people die from their abuse.

No one has ever died from using marijuana.

Sabet objects to the text of Proposition 215 which allows marijuana to be used for "any illness for which marijuana provides relief." He believes patients should take Vicodin or Percocet for pain with their debilitating side effects of constipation, respiratory distress, arrhythmias and liver toxicity rather than marijuana which has none of these life-threatening consequences. If a medicine works, it should be up to a doctor to decide if a patient should use it and not a government bureaucrat.

Showcasing Sabet's paranoid fear of legalization was his claim that "The Sun was scammed by the pro-legalization movement." Give The Sun some credit for being scam savvy. The real scam is being perpetuated by Sabet's organization, the Inland Valley Drug Free Community Coalition, which is so preoccupied with medical marijuana that it all but ignores the actually serious health threats to the community of methamphetamines, heroin, tobacco, alcohol and prescription drug abuse.

There do seem to be some notable problems with implementing Prop. 215, the 1996 California ballot initiative that legalized medical marijuana in the state. One is the law is unclear on the matter of growing cannabis. Consequently, large-scale growers who supply to medical marijuana clinics still have to worry about getting arrested. Also, there seems to be a conflict between federal and California law on the clinics, which is why the federal Drug Enforcement Agency keeps raiding clinics. In addition, the interpretation of the Prop. 215 varies greatly depending on the locality.

Medical marijuana was also the subject of an article by David Samuels in the July 28th New Yorker titled "Dr. Kush: How Medical Marijuana is Transforming the Pot Industry." Samuel's article explored some of these issues. The article seemed to take the position that medical marijuana may just be a back-door for legalization of pot, as Samuels wrote:

....As long as they had a California state I.D., those who received recommendations for marijuana could buy some immediately from the dispensary’s stock. Cindy told me that when she opened her shop, in 2007, she needed the same licenses that she would have needed to open a newsstand on the Santa Monica Pier: a commercial lease, a seller’s permit, a federal tax I.D. number, and a tobacco license (for selling rolling papers and pipes). She estimated that forty per cent of her clients suffer from serious illnesses such as cancer, AIDS, glaucoma, epilepsy, and M.S. The rest have ailments like anxiety, sleeplessness, A.D.D., and assorted pains.

Like many other dispensary owners I spoke with, Cindy derives particular satisfaction from providing medication to people who suffer from chronic diseases. Although she suspects that there is nothing seriously wrong with many of the young men who come in to buy an eighth of L.A. Confidential, she doesn’t regard marijuana as a harmful drug when compared with Xanax, Valium, Prozac, and other pills that are commonly prescribed by physicians to treat vague complaints of anxiety or dysphoria....

Coincidentally, the Samuels interviewed Los Angeles attorney Allison Margolin for his New Yorker piece. Margolin represented marijuana dispensary owner Darrell Kruse in his unsuccessful suit against the city of Claremont.

...I paid a visit to Allison Margolin, who calls herself “L.A.’s dopest attorney.” Her trade is a sort of family business—her father, the lawyer Bruce Margolin, is the author of the Margolin Guide, which enumerates the legal penalties for the sale and possession of pot in each of the fifty states. She works in a black-glass office tower on Wilshire Boulevard owned by Larry Flynt, the publisher of Hustler. On the walls in her office, a Harvard Law School degree is juxtaposed with a pictorial layout from the magazine Skunk, featuring her in a low-cut leopard-print dress. Margolin’s sexpot image is an advantage with clients, who, more often than not, are socially isolated men. Margolin has a reputation for getting cases dismissed, and for retrieving marijuana plants that have been seized by the police.

“The truth is, it’s very rare to get plants back,” Margolin said. Her long auburn hair was in a tidy French bun, but a few strands had been allowed to slip loose. Like many of her clients, she adopted a tone of adolescent vulnerability and outraged innocence when talking about the mean grownups who don’t like pot. “People are talking about how it’s being over-recommended and abused,” she said. “I mean, big fucking deal. It’s not toxic!” I asked her if she had a doctor’s letter, and she nodded vigorously, explaining that she suffers from an anxiety disorder.

She said that courts are sometimes sympathetic to her arguments about the relative safety of pot, but most judges and prosecutors seem to have only a glancing acquaintance with the case law since the passage of Proposition 215. “I’ve gone to court, like, several times where the judge has read only the first half of the case, which talks about how dispensaries are not legal according to Proposition 215,” she said. “I think it’s just intellectual and physical laziness.”

Apparently, the Pomona Courthouse, where the Kruse lawsuit was heard, has some of these lazy judges.

Both Samuels and Margolin were on KPCC 89.3FM's "Air Talk" last week and were interviewed by host Larry Mantle on the July 30th show. You can hear the interview here. In both the article and the interview, Samuels describes the medical marijuana movement as creating a market demand for higher quality, decently priced varieties of marijuana that can be purchased without having to go to a street drug dealer.

Tonight's Council Meeting

The Claremont City Council meets tonight at 6:30pm in the City Council chambers at 225 W. 2nd St. in the Claremont Village.

It's a busy agenda tonight as the council and Mayor Ellen Taylor scramble to get all their business done this month before the City Council and city commissions take their traditional August break. Hey, shouldn't we start thinking about reversing this? Let's have them meet in August and take the rest of the year off. You know, above all, do no harm.

Interested parties can also watch the proceedings here tonight beginning at 6:30pm.

In any case, the council tonight at 5:15pm starts with another in a never-ending series of closed sessions in which, the special meeting agenda says, they'll discuss "anticipated litigation" with an unidentified party as well as the possible water company takeover. The council will give a brief report of their closed session after they return for the public portion tonight.

The regular agenda includes the following items of interest:

• The second reading of the new marijuana dispensary ordinance that was approved at the last council meeting.
  
  
• An appeal of the Planning Commission's decision to approve a 162,000 square-foot academic and administrative building on the Claremont McKenna College campus. The appeal has been lodged by Peter Farquhar, Ray Fowler, Lydia Henry, and Ginger Elliot on behalf of Claremont Heritage.
  
  The appeal seems to center around the appellants concern about parking and the way the parking allowances for the new building were figured. City staff, naturally, argues that the appeal should be denied. We'll see who has more clout here, CMC or Claremont Heritage's Ginger Elliot.
  
  
• The renewal of the city's agreement with the Chamber of Commerce, a wholly-owned Claremont 400 subsidiary currently led by photographer Sonia Stump. The proposed new agreement will pay the Chamber $59,935 for the 2008-09 fiscal year and $61,756 for FY 2009-10.
  
  This is a sort of automatic renewal, and we've not seen much public discussion of whether or not the city's merchants are getting a good bang for your tax buck. Has anyone asked if the Chamber has done a good job of increasing foot traffic to the Village or the Village Expansion, not to mention the other areas of town?
  
  
• The proposed $50,000 grant to the Friends of the Claremont Library to fund a special collection of Claremont authors. A reader just commented on this one:
  
  
  I was up early this morning and read the post about the Friends of the Claremont Library asking the city for $50,000 to catalogue books by Claremont authors and several things came to mind. Don't we pay taxes to the county library already to have every book catalogued that is given to or purchased by the county system? Doesn't the county already have many of the books by Claremont authors in it's collection already and have already catalogued these books? Doesn't this city already have plenty of retired librarians that could volunteer to catalogue these books? And lastly, if the city is in such dire need of money with the anticipated shortfalls this year and next, why not put the money into reserves? I also wondered if these books are going to circulate to other libraries in the system or if they are going to circulate at all? If they are not, this is not the best use of taxpayer funds to enable the creation of what will essentially be a private collection, something that is better suited to a private library, not a public library whose beginnings were meant to provide the masses with free circulating books to educate and uplift themselves. I hope the council will reconsider this issue and not respond with a knee-jerk reaction to this request.
  
  Yep.
  
  
• Tree mitigation for homes on Shenandoah Dr. The staff report provides three alternatives (Plans A, B, and C) ranging in price from $251,000 to $511,000. The discussion provides an good window into the true costs of being a Tree City - costs which tend to be ignored until the sidewalk is cracked and lifted up all throughout a neighborhood.
  
  
• A parking permit plan for residents of Via Santa Catarina at the Johnson's Pasture trailhead in Claremont's Claraboya neighborhood.
  
  Another example of what happens when easily foreseeable consequences are ignored. Claremont bought Johnson's Pasture, but failed to deal with the fact that a small residential cul-de-sac with no extra parking sits at the beginning of the trail. As a result, the neighborhood feels overrun with hikers' vehicles taking up all the limited parking along with a perceived increase in crime-risk and general nuisances.
  
  The other way in to the pasture is from the Claremont Wilderness Park entrance over on Mills Ave. A long trek indeed.
  

Marijuana Dispensary Ban Approved

The Claremont City Council last Tuesday ended up approving a municipal ordinance banning medical marijuana dispensaries.

The vote was 4-1, with two councilmembers, Linda Elderkin and Sam Pedroza, changing their support for the dispensaries. The lone "NO" vote was Mayor Ellen Taylor. Taylor apparently guessed how the vote would turn out, and she didn't want to have too much discussion on the matter. For no reason, Taylor limited the public to three minutes per person, and didn't hesitate to interrupt the speakers to tell them "30 seconds." (Wielding the gavel in Claremont excuses you from such normal human courtesy as not interrupting people who are speaking, as former Mayor Paul Held could tell you.)

It struck us as very odd that Taylor would not want the public speakers, who for the most part supported Taylor's position, to help argue her case. It's not as if there were 100 people waiting to speak. There were only four or five speakers on the subject, and the shorter time limit is normally imposed when there are dozens speaking. Very odd indeed.

We can only surmise that Taylor did not want to have to endure the embarrassment of being on the losing end of a 4-1 vote, so she sped things up. Still, she ought to have let people have their have as much time as they needed to make their points. Instead, she took us back to the days of the artificially short time, which gives the city the great advantage of not only being able to make a presentation of unlimited length, but also allows even more opened ended time for the city to rebut any concerns raised by the speakers.

We said when she became Mayor that Taylor would reimpose a time limit, and sure enough she did. Expect more (and worse) in the future.

Claremont Grow House Raided

Our Carnac powers must have been set on high (no pun intended) when we wrote about the increase in marijuana grow houses in California two weeks ago.

Last Saturday's Claremont Courier had a blurb in its Police Blotter about a marijuana grow house on Cleary Ct. in Northeast Claremont a few blocks from La Puerta Sports Park.

The Courier's Police Blotter had this to say about the June 6th raid on the Cleary Ct. grow house:

Police found over 500 marijuana plants at a home in north Claremont, the first ever ‘grow house’ discovered within the city limits. Police could not determine an estimated street value of the plants.

A search warrant was served at the residence around 3:18 p.m. after extensive police surveillance. Police were initially tipped off about the home, located at 167 Cleary Ct., from suspicious neighbors. The windows of the home were covered in black plastic tarps, the trash was not taken out regularly and nobody seemed to live at the location permanently.

Jeffrey Gway, 52, has rented the 4-bedroom, 2-story home since April. Mr. Gway was arrested at his residence in Rancho Cucamonga. Another suspect connected to the operation, Carl McEntire, 28, of Rancho Cucamonga, was also arrested. Mr. McEntire was often seen driving to and from the home. Police believe the owners of the home did not have knowledge of the operation.

The Blotter also reported that the suspects had stolen about $4,000 worth of electricity by wiring around the electric meter.

Our Insider Security Team may have stumbled onto this grow house phenomena** (see below) in its nightly Claremont surveillance. We'll have to check on that. In the meantime, we've found some ways for estimating the street value of the Cleary Ct. plants. The articles we were able to find on the subject generally agreed that each plant can produce up to one pound of processed marijuana. The articles also varied between street values of $1,500 and $4,000 per pound of marijuana, depending on the market and the quality of the product.

So, using the lower figure, we get an estimated value of $750,000 for the 500 plants (one pound per plant times $1,500).

* * * * * * * *

[**We checked with our Security Team. As a cost-cutting measure, we have outsourced all of our security work to India, and Anand in Bangalore was a bit slow in reviewing the data. With the large antenna arrays you see on the mountain above town, we capture every phone call, police communication, Code Red signal, video camera image, and most private conversations in town. Hey, we're not the Government, so it might be OK. This Insider Echelon system produces terabytes of data daily, and it takes poor old Anand a little time to get through it. But here we provide the recently-declassified image taken from the Claremont Police Helicopter (betcha didn't know about that, either) from two weeks ago.]

Marijuana Ordinance: New, Improved, Says City

Having opted out of a municipal ordinance that would have allowed a single medical marijuana dispensary to operate in Claremont, city officials will instead consider adopting an ordinance banning the dispensaries entirely.

The city council will consider the newest marijuana dispensary ordinance at their next meeting on June 24th.

You can review the draft ordinance here.

Marijuana Q & A

The Daily Bulletin's Will Bigham interviewed Darrell Kruse, the owner of the now-closed Claremont medical marijuana dispensary C.A.N.N.A.B.I.S. The city of Claremont won its lawsuit against Kruse last month and the judge in the case granted a permanent injunction barring Kruse from reopening his dispensary.

Since then, on May 13th, the Claremont City Council voted 3-1 to reject a municipal ordinance that would have allowed a single dispensary in town. Instead, the council directed city staff to craft an ordinance banning all dispensaries.

Although we didn't support the dispensary ordinance, we also think that the city didn't really act in good faith in the entire, drawn-out ordinance process. Apparently, Darrell Kruse feels the same way, as he told Will Bigham in the Bulletin interview:

Q: What do you think about the city's recent decision to ban dispensaries? As you know, the City Council had previously voted, in concept, to allow one dispensary.

A: The city has been disingenuous throughout the process. If I ever believed they would allow a dispensary, I would have settled. If they had intended to have one, they could have done it a lot sooner. They delayed until the court decided the issue and then allowed their discompassionate attitude to prevail and ignored the needs of sick people and the will of the voters.

Kruse also indicated that he might fight the court's decision and felt that the state appellate court might be more open to his arguments.

In researching some of the information for this post, we came across an interesting campaign donation in January, 2007, from Kruse to an unexpected recipient. We're still trying to figure out Kruse's reasoning for the $500 contribution. It doesn't seem to make much sense, but, as they say, politics makes strange bedfellows:

Click to Enlarge

Doin' Time

Not that this would have happened here in Claremont had Claremont's medical marijuana dispensary ordinance passed last week, but the San Francisco Chronicle reports that two medical marijuana dispensary operators in Modesto have been convicted of running a criminal enterprise:

Luke Anthony Scarmazzo, 28, and Ricardo Ruiz Montes, 28, were convicted by a federal jury Fresno on Thursday of conducting a continuing criminal enterprise, growing marijuana and possessing marijuana with the intent to distribute.

The conviction for running a criminal enterprise carries a mandatory sentence of at least 20 years. U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger is to sentence both men Aug. 4.

Federal officials said the case sends a message to marijuana growers and dealers who believe they are shielded from prosecution under the California law legalizing medical marijuana use.

"Scarmazzo and Montes made millions by exploiting and hiding behind California's medical marijuana law," said McGregor Scott, U.S. attorney in Sacramento. "In this case, there was no conflict between state and federal law, as their conduct was illegal under both.

"California's medical marijuana law clearly sets out that making a profit selling marijuana is illegal," Scott said. "These two set out to make as much money as they could as drug dealers, plain and simple."

Scarmazzo and Montes obtained a business license from the city of Modesto by falsely representing that their California Healthcare Collective would engage in "retail sales of natural health-care products," authorities said. In reality, they limited their business to marijuana sales, authorities said.

The collective filed papers with Modesto stating that it earned more than $4.5 million while operating in the Central Valley city from 2004 to 2006, investigators said. But the evidence at trial showed that the defendants actually generated more than $9 million in sales.

Nice work if you can get it.

Medical Marijuana Ordinance Voted Down

The Claremont City Council last night voted 3-1 against implementing a proposed medical marijuana dispensary ordinance. Mayor Ellen Taylor was the only person to vote for the measure. Councilmember Peter Yao was absent.

The Daily Bulletin covered the council meeting and has an article on the vote. The Bulletin article indicates that the council referred the matter back to city staff to draft an ordinance banning dispensaries.

The new marching orders to staff represent a complete about-face by the council, which had voted 3-2 last July to direct city staff draft a ordinance that would have legalized dispensaries (or at least one) in Claremont. In that July vote, councilmembers Peter Yao and Corey Calaycay voted against going forward with the draft ordinance that was voted down last night.

Councilmembers Linda Elderkin and Sam Pedroza reversed their positions from being for an ordinance to voting against it.

A temporary moratorium against dispensaries remains in place and will expire in September.

So, again we ask, was this trip really necessary?

Was This Trip Really Necessary?

Circular motion is a Claremont specialty, as we've seen with any number of Claremont issues that have come forth from the braintrust that runs so much of the town: the roundabout at Indian Hill Blvd. and Bonita Ave. (put in, then taken out after accident and complaints piled up); their support for hugely unpopular ex-City Manager Glenn Southard; their insistence on shoehorning in the Padua Sports Park into a residential neighborhood serviced by one two-lane road; the failed 2006 Parks and Pastures assessment district; their similar insistence on pushing the Base Line Rd. affordable housing project; and now, their medical marijuana law.

For those of you who are interested, the Claremont City Council will consider its medical marijuana dispensary ordinance tonight at the council's regular meeting, which begins at 6:30pm in the City Council Chambers at 225 W. 2nd St.

Will Bigham has an article in the Daily Bulletin confirming what was reported Saturday in the Claremont Courier about an apparent council majority against the proposed ordinance. Councilmembers Linda Elderkin and Sam Pedroza, who had initially voted with Mayor Ellen Taylor to support going forward with an ordinance, are now indicating they are against the law, though for different reasons.

Elderkin says she is bothered by a January California Supreme Court ruling that employees can be fired for testing positive for marijuana even if the employee has a prescription. The Bigham article quoted Elderkin:

"What this effectively does, this decision, is says the state cannot decide to get behind its own law," Elderkin said.

She said the "legal ambiguity" of the state's medical- marijuana program "makes it awfully difficult" for a small city such as Claremont to tackle the issue with confidence.

"I really believe the state has an obligation to really support the law, and that means support the cities, support the dispensaries - I think they have a legal obligation to do so, and it's clear the legal system is not doing so," Elderkin said.

Pedroza, on the other hand, told Bigham that he was having second thoughts about the issue after hearing from people opposed to the dispensaries:

Sam Pedroza was supportive of the idea last year, but he said Monday that he now has misgivings about the idea, partially because of the vocal opposition that has materialized in recent months from the Chamber of Commerce and other city institutions.

Before voting in July, there was very little community input, Pedroza said, "and a ton of input afterwards."

"To say that I've been educated is an understatement," Pedroza added. "I need to be responsive as a member of a representative government."

Councilmembers Corey Calaycay and Peter Yao originally voted against going forward with the ordinance last year, so presumably, that would make a 4-1 vote against the dispensary law. Queen Ellen remains supportive of the law. According to the Bulletin article, she said:

"I think it's the right thing to do," she said. "And if any city can do it, Claremont can do it."

Translation: "I ain't gonna change, no way, no how." She's a rock[head] that Ellen, our decider.

More reasonable minds are asking, as they always do when we end up back where we started on these things, why did we waste all this time and energy? If public opinion was needed, why not get it beforehand and spare everyone this stupid exercise?

* * *

Speaking of running in circles, the City of Claremont's Affordable Housing Task Force has its first meeting tomorrow evening at 5pm in City Hall.

The Task Force, hand-picked by Ellen Taylor and Sam Pedroza, was stocked with plenty of people loyal to Taylor's "vision" of how the affordable housing project should go: Police Commissioner and League of Women Voters President Barbara Musselman, Human Services Commissioner and general misanthrope Andy Winnick, former Planning Commission Chair and League of Women Voters member Sharon Hightower, and several other usual suspects.

If you want to see an exercise in manipulation, turn out tomorrow to watch the Task Force at work. We suspect the Base Line Rd. project isn't dead yet, at least in the small minds of Taylor, Musselman & Winnick. The city's Police Commission, with Musselman on board, has quietly removed the Base Line Rd. site from consideration as a possible location for a new Claremont police station. The Police Commission gave no explanation for the removal, but one suspects Musselman had other plans for the site and that she worked behind the scenes with the Police Department to nix the Base Line site from the department's plans.

As always when Taylor and the Claremont Area League of Women Voters are concerned, it's not the words but what lies below the surface that holds meaning. Watch what they do at tomorrow's Affordable Housing Task Force meeting comes into play a few years down the road. (We'll link back to this post when Musselman's play becomes evident.)

Affordable Housing Task Force
May 14, 5:00 PM
City Hall, First Floor Conference Room
207 Harvard (enter @ north side of building)
For information, call (909) 399-5460

Marijuana Ordinance Up for Vote Tuesday

Wednesday's Claremont Courier carried an article updating the public on Claremont's medical marijuana ordinance. Unfortunately, the article is not available online, having been superseded by more important stories like Career Day at Chaparral Elementary School.

As we've written previously, the ordinance has so defined the sort of medical marijuna dispensary the city would allow as to regulate the businesses out of the realm of possibility:

• It limits the dispensaries allowed in the city to one.
• The dispensary must be registered with the IRS as a non-profit organization.
• It can only operate from 9am to 5pm Monday through Friday, and Saturdays from 9am to 1pm.
• The dispensary will be limited to areas zoned as "Business Industrial."
• No marijuana farming will be allowed.
• If consumables such as brownies or ice cream are sold, the business much be regulated by the LA County Health Department.
• No marijuana paraphernalia could be sold.
• City staff, such as the police chief would have regular access to the business.
• Prospective owners would be subject to background checks.
• Security guards would have to be on premises during operating hours, and 24-hour security cameras would have to be installed.
• Only Claremont residents could be customers, and patients would have to provide proof of residency with documentation to be maintained onsite.

The city will consider the proposed ordinance at next Tuesday's City Council meeting.

We think the issue played out exactly as we predicted. The city was never really interested in allowing the dispensaries. There was never really any good faith effort to work with the possible dispensary owners. Instead, we got this unnecessary exercise in wasted staff time and expense to come up with an ordinance that even some of the people who had pushed the ordinance in the first place are now questioning.

According the Courier article, Councilmember Linda Elderkin "said she would likely vote against it because of conflicting state and federal laws surrounding the dispensaries." And Councilmember Sam Pedroza, who with Elderkin and Claremont Mayor Ellen "Cookie" Taylor had insisted on having the ordinance, signalled his doubts as well in the article:

"With limited state language, and zero support from the federal government, I feel like we're playing a game with a set of broken tools," Mr. Pedroza said.

So tell us again, why we didn't just keep the moratorium against the dispensaries in place in the first place rather than waste everyone's time, energy and money?

The dispensary proponents aren't too happy about the way this has been handled, the article said:

"I don't know why they are backpedaling on a good decision they made that will benefit a lot of sick people," said medical marijuana activist David Kasakove, who was hoping to run the dispensary in town. "It would be really sad if they cave in to peer pressure or influence by outsiders who are not fully aware of what is going on statewide in medical marijuana."

"I thought Claremont was more progressive than that," he added.

He don't know us very well, do he? The proper term for Claremont like our mayor and her friends is "faux-progressive."

All of this could have been predicted, and was. Claremont was never really serious about the dispensaries. It merely gave Queen Ellen and some of her staff an excuse to a couple junkets on the taxpayers' dime:

In researching the ordinance, Mayor Ellen Taylor and city staff visited several medical marijuana dispensaries in San Francisco and Los Angeles over the past several months. Ms. Taylor said that she heard very few complaints from neighbors and neighboring businesses located near the dispensaries.

"I supported them in theory but I wanted to see how they worked in practice," Ms. Taylor said.

After visiting the dispensaries, Ms. Taylor felt "absolutely certain" that a well-regulated facility could run successfully in Claremont.

We're glad that Ellen was able to visit the dispensaries and hope she had her prescription with her. It least answers one question about Taylor that comes up frequently: Is she high?

City to Darlene and Dave Matteson: DROP DEAD

Claremont Marijuana Ordinance Draft Available

Dave and Darlene Matteson at a recent city council meeting

The long-awaited draft medical marijuana dispensary ordinance is up on the City of Claremont website. Unfortunately for tenacious advocates Darlene and Dave Matteson, they wont be able to purchase their dime bags in Claremont unless they move to town from Upland: all "patients" must be Claremont residents. [sorry, it's just impossible to write this phrase without the scare quotes; there are no quotes around "patient" in the original]

Dave and Darlene in happier times

The draft ordinance, found on the City website here, comprises ten densely-packed pages. There are restrictions on the permit itself. There are lots of restrictions on operation: we like 5.50.40.A, "Operator shall not be engaged in interstate commerce of marijuana." Only home-grown bud. There are loads of operational restrictions, security measures, and enforcement provisions.

One curiosity: Section 5.50.20 is blank. It's "RESERVED", in the parlance of the City. We wondered what possibly could be missing from this lengthy exercise in rule-making. It finally hit us, and then, sure enough, the omission we came up with is addressed in Section 5, on page ten. Where is this community amenity going to be located? They don't know yet. Section 5 reads, "The Moratorium shall remain in effect until such time as the locational criteria for the establishment of a dispensary has [sic, we don't create this verbiage, we just copy it] been adopted and becomes [sic, same problem] effective."

But notice, all you vipers out there. The City will bring in an ordinance--this one--within the allotted time of the current moratorium, but it won't be complete, and Hell will effectively freeze over before the "locational criteria" are ever established. Oh, Lisa Prasse--her name appears in the document ID fields--and her cohort are clever rascals.

And if you thought the Padua Park and affordable housing wars brought out the NIMBYs, just wait until the medical marijuana dispensary comes to your neighborhood. Our suggestion: Put it on one of the college campuses; no one would notice the parking problem and town-and-gown relations would never be better.

For those of you who were not sentient in 1975, our headline came from this:

Kruse Lawsuit - UPDATED

Citizen Michael John Keenan sent us an update on the lawsuit the city of Claremont filed against Darrell Kruse, the guy who opened the medical marijuana dispensary without a city business license:

Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2008, 19:56:39 - 0700 (PDT)
Subject: Darrel Kruse and City Settled in Court Today
To: claremontbuzzatyahoo.com

No info just yet. So the next council agenda may include a decision on a merry jane med clinic/cooperative.Palm Springs is leaning towards a cooperative setup.http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_D_marijuana17.3ff98ec.html

I think Claremont will land somewhere in between Palm Springs on regs and Corona's outright land use ban. I do believe these are the two other ordinance's Sonia claimed to be working on before Active Claremont.

Happy Trails, Michael Keenan

We haven't been able to confirm the settlement. The last bit of Keenan's email is in reference to last week's Active Claremont meeting, where Claremont City Attorney Sonia Carvalho spoke about the draft medical marijuana dispensary ordinance she has been working.

UPDATED, 7:35PM: Claremont City Manager Jeff Parker reported on the Kruse case in his City Manager's report earlier today. Parker said that the judge in the case sided with the city and issued a tentative ruling in the city's favor:

The Court found that Mr. Kruse's operation of CANNABIS [Kruse's dispensary] without a license created a nuisance and rejected Mr. Kruse's arguments that the Compassionate Use Act preempts the City's zoning laws. The Court also found that the moratorium is correct under Gov. Code 65858 and that the [dismissal] of Mr. Kruse's administrative appeal was proper. The court issued a permanent injunction against Mr. Kruse operating CANNABIS, pending the end of the moratorium, and unless and until the City actually grants Kruse a license at some future date. The City is also awarded its costs. The tentative decision becomes final in 10 days, unless a party "specifies controverted issues or makes proposals not covered in the tentative decision" or appeals.

Coincidentally (or not) Parker also reported that the city's draft marijuana dispensary ordinance is also ready and will be released for public review on April 30th. The ordinance will be posted on the city website and will also be available for review at City Hall or at the Claremont Public Library. Parker's weekly update said:

In crafting the ordinance, staff along with the City Attorney's office, reviewed ordinances from many other cities and incorporated provisions that suit Claremont's needs. The provisions are designed, and necessary, to protect the public health, safety and welfare of the residents, children, and businesses from harmful secondary effects that could result from a dispensary. The ordinance, as drafted, regulates many aspects of the potential businesses, and contains provisions regarding review process, security, operation methods, enforcement, and prohibitions.

Readers Respond to Marijuana Dispensaries

We received some feedback to our last update on Claremont's medical marijuana dispensary ordinance.

One reader sent in a link to some legislation proposed by Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA). The bill seeks to legalize personal use as well as medical marijuana applications. Frank's press release for the bill (HR 5842) quotes Frank as he explains his reasoning:

"When doctors recommend the use of marijuana for their patients and states are willing to permit it, I think it’s wrong for the federal government to subject either the doctors or the patients to criminal prosecution. More broadly speaking, the norm in America is for the states to decide whether particular behaviors should be made criminal. To make the smoking of marijuana, whether for medical purposes or not, one of those extremely rare instances of federal crime – literally, to make a ‘federal case’ out of it – is wholly disproportionate to the activity involved. We do not have federal criminal prohibitions against drinking alcoholic beverages, and there are generally no criminal penalties for the use of tobacco at the state and federal levels for adults. There is no rational argument for treating marijuana so differently from these other substances.”

“To those who say that the government should not be encouraging the smoking of marijuana, my response is that I completely agree. But it is a great mistake to divide all human activity into two categories: those that are criminally prohibited, and those that are encouraged. In a free society, there must be a very considerable zone of activity between those two poles in which people are allowed to make their own choices as long as they are not impinging on the rights, freedom, or property of others. I believe it is important with regard to tobacco, marijuana and alcohol, among other things, that we strictly regulate the age at which people may use these substances. And, enforcement of age restrictions should be firm. But, criminalizing choices that adults make because we think they are unwise ones, when the choices involved have no negative effect on the rights of others, is not appropriate in a free society."

* * *

Another reader wrote in to criticize the letter the Claremont Chamber of Commerce sent in to the Claremont Courier regarding the ordinance. The Chamber is opposed to allowing the dispensaries. The reader said:

Subject: insane in the membrane
To: claremontbuzzatyahoo.com

That's one extra-bizarre letter from the directors of the Claremont Chamber of Commerce. Point by point:

1.) "Other dispensaries in the state have been targets of burglaries and robberies, not just in the facility, but also 'follow home' crimes where the patrons of such dispensaries have been the victims."

So have banks and supermarkets and liquor stores. The Von's on Baseline has near-daily shoplifters; a few years ago, the manager on duty confronted a shoplifter in the liquor section, and ended up with a gun in his face. The CPD answers frequent calls for service from the local banks, from tellers accidentally triggering robbery alarms and people trying to cash fraudulent checks and whatever else. Should we close the supermarkets and the banks? What kind of reasoning is this?

Every business with cash or valuable products on the premises is a potential target for criminals, and no one ever argues for closing any other kind of business on that basis. Five minutes with the police blotter devastates this argument. Criminals target retail businesses. The bad actor in that sentence are the criminals, not the businesses. The chamber's argument in a nutshell: We don't want you to open a business in our community, because you might get robbed. And here I thought the Chamber of Commerce was pro-business.

"We are concerned about the impact this potential crime would have on industrial, commercial and residential areas as well as the impact on the time commitment of our police department."

Well, we wouldn't want the police department to have to investigate crime, now, would we?

2.) Employment. "Businesses have a right to protect themselves and their customers by drug testing their employees to help maintain the quality and safety of their work environment."

Huh? If there are marijuana dispensaries in Claremont, employers can't test their employees for drugs or regulate the safety of their places of work? Just like the way that employers can't forbid their employees to be drunk on the job, because Claremont permits the presence of liquor stores. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

"We are concerned with the issues that have surfaced in regards to the use of 'medicinal marijuana' and protecting employers rights in terms of testing and workplace use of marijuana."

This is pure Claremont reasoning: "We are concerned with the issues that have surfaced..." What issues? That have surfaced where? What statute, case law, or public policy are they referring to? Can they reference a news article, a piece of legislation, anything? What the f*** are these people babbling on about?

3). Health. "Due to the fact that these facilities are not regulated pharmacies, it is unclear who would be in charge of enforcement of any health issues of such a facility including amounts, quality, cleanliness, etc. The Chamber is concerned that either these issues would be the responsibility of city staff, or even worse, go completely unmonitored."

This is AWESOME -- the letter begins with a warning that the presence of marijuana dispensaries will "open up our city, landowners and business districts to potential federal raids and prosecution," then closes with a somber bit of handwringing over the dire fact that marijuana dispensaries are completely unmonitored by government. Four paragraphs to complete self-negation -- that's rhetorical skill, baby. Although I do appreciate their concern that the quality of the marijuana will not be thoroughly regulated, cough cough.

Add to this the fact that the chamber is arguing against the city government permitting dispensaries because it's unclear how they'll be regulated. If only local governments had some sort of mechanism in place for creating and enforcing regulations.

Transparently bad reasoning from start to finish. What a shock to see that Paul Held serves on the board.

Marijuana Dispensary News

Daily Bulletin Reporter Wendy Leung has an article reporting on Rancho Cucamonga's City Council voting to ban medical marijuana dispensaries. The article said:

Councilman Dennis Michael said one reason he supports the ban is that police officers have cited an increase in crime in areas near dispensaries.

"That's certainly not the kind of business we want in this city," Michael said.

Rancho Cucamonga joins a host of neighboring cities that have enacted some kind of prohibition on businesses that sell medical marijuana.

Upland, Montclair, Redlands and Colton are some cities that have enacted a full ban. A temporary ban is in effect in La Verne and Highland.

Claremont, meanwhile, continues to slow roll its own marijuana dispensary ordinance, which would allow dispensaries, or at least a single dispensary, in town. The Claremont 400 is split on the issue, with the faction led by Mayor Ellen Taylor and Councilpersons Sam Pedroza and Linda Elderkin in favor of the ordinance.

The Claremont Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, on he other hand, has weighed in with a letter to the Claremont Courier in that paper's April 5th edition arguing against the dispensary ordinance.

The Chamber's primary concern is that allow the dispensaries would be in conflict with federal law. So, the letter said, "The Claremont Chamber of Commerce feels that it is a terrible business practice to open up our city, landowners and business districts to potential federal raids and prosecution."

The letter went on to cite some other specific concerns:

1. Safety—Other dispensaries in the state have been targets of burglaries and robberies, not just in the facility, but also “follow home” crimes where the patrons of such dispensaries have been the victims. We are concerned about the impact this potential crime would have on industrial, commercial and residential areas as well as the impact on the time commitment of our police department.

2. Employment—Businesses have a right to protect themselves and their customers by drug testing their employees to help maintain the quality and safety of their work environment. We are concerned with the issues that have surfaced in regards to the use of “medicinal marijuana” and protecting employer’s rights in terms of testing and workplace use of marijuana.

3. Health—Due to the fact that these facilities are not regulated pharmacies, it is unclear who would be in charge of enforcement of any health issues of such a facility including amounts, quality, cleanliness, etc. The Chamber is concerned that either these issues would be the responsibility of city staff, or even worse, go completely unmonitored.

Claremont's City Attorney, Sonia Carvalho has been working on the language for the ban, and one suspects that some excuse will crop up to slow any progress on the ordinance. Or, Carvalho will come up with something so restrictive as to make it impossible for any dispensaries to open. That way Taylor, et. al., could say they passed the ordinance without ever actually having to deal with a marijuana dispensary in Claremont.

Marijuana Update

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.

Marijuana News

Claremont's City Council may want to rethink it's consideration of a city ordinance regulating marijuana dispensaries in town.

The Los Angeles Daily News, a sister paper of the Daily Bulletin, had an article yesterday about a former dispensary owner pleading guilty to federal narcotics and money laundering charges:

Larry Roger Kristich, 65, who returned from Costa Rica last summer after being indicted, pleaded guilty Thursday afternoon to one count of maintaining drug-involved premises and one count of promotional money laundering. Each count carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison. Kristich also agreed to forfeit more than $1.2 million cash generated by sales at his stores.

Kristich pleaded guilty before United States District Judge Manuel Real, who scheduled a sentencing hearing for April 21.

From 2002 through 2005, Kristich owned and operated Compassionate Caregivers, which had marijuana stores in Oakland, San Francisco, San Leandro, West Hollywood (which operated under the name The Yellow House), San Diego, Bakersfield and Ukiah. These stores sold marijuana, marijuana plants, THC-laced edible products (including candy bars, cookies and soda pop), and THC tinctures. Kristich was president of the company, which employed more than 200 people as growers, clone cultivators, drivers, directors, store managers, retail sellers (referred to as "budtenders") and security guards.

Kristich admitted that sales of marijuana and THC products at Compassionate Caregivers' stores totaled over $95 million. Kristich also admitted that he laundered more than $50 million of such drug proceeds.

Claremont's current city council currently has a three-person majority in favor a medical marijuana ordinance. Councilmembers Ellen Taylor, Linda Elderkin and Sam Pedroza have indicated in the past they may be willing to allow a dispensary in town.

In an unrelated Daily News article reporter Jason Kandel reported on violent takeover robberies occurring at San Fernando Valley marijuana dispensaries. In these instances, the employees of the dispensaries were innocent victims of robbers who targeted the clinics with the assumption that they generate pretty good cash flow as well as stocking a resaleable commodity, things that Larry Kristich could confirm.

Kandel's article said:

STUDIO CITY - Police today were searching for two men involved in an armed takeover robbery of a Studio City medical marijuana dispensary that netted the crooks $4,500 in cash and an unknown amount of pot, police said this morning.

Two men, described as African American, one armed with a shotgun, the other with a pistol, entered Wellness Caregivers on Ventura Boulevard about 1:30 yesterday, and ordered three employees to the floor, said Los Angeles Police Detective Joe Esquivel. One gunman tied up two employees with duct tape and locked them in a back room, while the second gunman took the manager room-to-room, seizing cash and pot, before taking off, Esquivel said.

No one was injured in the heist and no description of the gunmen was available. Nobody saw a getaway car. Police were hoping to retrieve surveillance video today.

Latest in string of heists

It was the latest in a string of similar heists in the San Fernando Valley -- at least the 14th such Valley robbery in the last two years. It comes as a Los Angeles medical-marijuana dispensary owner has installed a vending machine that offers up to an ounce of pot per week to pre-approved patients.

The outlets have become so prevalent - there are at least 232 in the city, 110 in the Valley - that late last year the LAPD put together a database of crimes that occur at or near them. Besides the 14 robberies, police have recorded more than 63 violent or major property crimes committed at these facilities in the last two years.

"There's a lot of crime associated with these places," said Los Angeles police Lt. Tom Murrell of the Devonshire Division, which investigated the Granada Hills incident. "It's becoming more and more prominent."

Jason Kandel also wrote about the robberies on the Daily News' Crime Blog:

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that when you have pot and cash at unsecured businesses - pot clinics - you're going to have a cottage industry of takeover robberies. The violence is making life hell for pot clinic employees, giving police more work, and in return forcing taxpayers to fork over more money to combat the problem.

It's unsurprising that the Claremont Police Dept. is against dispensaries opening in town. Not only might they have to monitor compliance issues, but they also might have to respond to these sorts of robbery incidents.

Of course, it's not like Claremont hasn't had these things happen without marijuana being involved.

Claremont on Our Mind

Two news items this afternoon put us in mind of Claremont. First was a dramatic fire. When we saw the picture, it seemed as if at long last the behemoth along the south side of First Street between Indian Hill and College was meeting its fate. We don't wish anyone ill, of course, but the architecture is so Not Claremont. We even thought we saw the name of our city disappearing into the smoke and char at the top of the building,

We were wrong, certainly. It is actually a fire in a hotel in Las Vegas, and reports now have it put out.

And then there was a report of new technology on the medical marijuana front. We hope this link stays up, but for now see the video report on CBS News here. (there is a 15-second commercial preceding the video; wait it out.)

The report describes a vending machine for medical pot. Call us old-fashioned here at the Insider, but we more or less prefer our pharmacists to be dressed in something other than a tie-dyed T-shirt, hoodie, and a doo-rag.

Maybe pro-doper city council members Ellen Taylor, Linda Elderkin, and Sam Pedroza will be installing this machine in City Hall, to complement the new crack-house door in the City Hall lobby.

Or, in keeping with Elderkin's desire to have a respected non-profit run the Claremont operation, maybe Pilgrim Place will bid on it. To hear Pedroza talk, its the old retired missionaries who are clamoring to torch up a doobie. We also hear the Associated Students of Pomona College are interested in the franchise for the Smith Campus Center.

At the December 11, 2007 City Council meeting, medical marijuana advocates Darlene and David Matteson managed to stage a picture of themselves with the members of the city council. This is probably a picture you WON'T be seeing on the official City website. From left to right, Mayor pro tem Ellen Taylor, Councilmember Sam Pedroza, Mayor Peter Yao, David Matteson, Darlene Matteson, Councilmember Linda Elderkin, back of head of official photographer. This picture has NOT been modified (we are not above that sort of thing, but in this case we didn't do it). Councilmember Corey Calaycay (not pictured) had the innate good political sense to make sure the photographer's head was between him and the video camera.

Claremont City Council Pictured with Marijuana Advocates

More Green News

The Daily Bulletin continues its "Green Valley" series today with an article that focuses on the confusion created by the ways local governments choose to interpret state and federal laws on marijuana possession and use.

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And, in other green news of a different flavor, the Bulletin also had a little blurb noting that Robert Redford spoke at Pitzer College yesterday. Redford was here for the ribbon cutting ceremony for the three new Pitzer dorms, which have drawn a lot of attention nationally for their environmentally friendly designs.

The dorms meet the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards. They feature the use of recycled materials, energy-efficient heating and cooling designs, and water-conserving fixtures.

The LA Times mentioned the Pitzer dorms in an article on August 23rd, and NPR ran a story about the dorms as well. The NPR story described Pitzer as being located a "50 miles east of Los Angeles in the desert town of Claremont."

Marijuana Monday

The Daily Bulletin has been running a series of articles on marijuana appropriately titled "Grass Valley."

There a group videos on their website that feature an interview with Rancho Cucamonga resident Ed Hill with his views on marijuana dispensaries, film of a police bust of a pot farm, an interview with Mira Loma medical marijuana patient George Agatep, a video of police serving search warrants on a Pomona medical marijuana dispensary, and an interview with Rancho Cucamonga Mayor Don Kurth. (NOTE: The videos may slow down your computer's performance.)

The Don Kurth interview, which comes at the end of the string of videos, is especially interesting. The video states that when he was 20, Mayor Kurth was an alcoholic and marijuana and heroin user before going into rehab. Kurth sees merits in favor of medical-use marijuana, but also worries about abuse of the dispensaries by people who perhaps don't really need the marijuana for medical reasons.

The videos and articles paint a pretty complete picture of the debate over the medical marijuana dispensaries, as well as the ongoing problems with illegal marijuana farms in the Inland Empire and the San Gabriel Valley.

For some time now we've heard of pot farms being discovered in upscale bedroom communities in our area. These farms are large-scale operations with thousands of plants and pirated electricity to power grow lamps.

Will Bigham has an article in today's Bulletin on the subject. Bigham's article indicates Asian organized crime gangs are behind many of these operations, which require significant capital outlays and expertise in setting up the farms. According to the article, the pot farms are used by the crime syndicates to generate cash, which is then pumped into other parts of their operations.

Marijuana Update

Claremont continues to move towards establishing an ordinance to regulate medical marijuana dispensaries.

Sort of.

The City Council at its last meeting September 11th voted to extend Claremont's moratorium on the dispensaries. The moratorium was ending this month, but the council action last week added another year to the ban.

In the meantime, according to Tony Krickl in last Saturday's Claremont Courier, city staff will work on the ordinance, which Claremont City Manager Jeff Parker estimated would take six or seven months to put together and get to the City Council for a vote.

The Krickl article (not posted online) quoted City Councilmember Linda Elderkin, who along with Councilmembers Sam Pedroza and Ellen Taylor voted to establish the marijuana ordinance:

"I am only interested in a very restrictive ordinance that allows just those who are truly in need of this service to benefit," council member Linda Elderkin said.

One gets the impression that Elderkin, Pedroza and Taylor may be regretting their vote, which was not overwhelmingly popular among rank-and-file Claremonters. If past performance is any indicator, you can expect the city to drag out the ordinance process and come up with something so restrictive as to make it prohibitive. Something like requiring dispensaries to have a licensed medical doctor on site at all times, or some other such requirement that would be impossible to meet.

This gives Elderkin and friends the illusion of having made a law without actually having to come up with working one. At least, that's our predication. Let's see how it plays out.