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Suetaz

City plans to reduce seven medical pot vendors to four

By Laura Counts, STAFF WRITER | Tri-Valley Herald | April 18/04

OAKLAND -- United by the risk of a federal bust and a zealous conviction that they are helping ill people, medical marijuana purveyors always have maintained a certain level of community, watching each other's back.

Now, new city rules are forcing Oakland's cannabis clubs to compete with each other for survival.

Beginning in June, the city will limit the number of marijuana outlets to four. This week, operators of seven existing dispensaries, and one newcomer called Canna Bilistic RX, will make their cases to the City Manager's Office to stay in operation.

The city will issue business permits to up to four that make the cut, while the others will be shut down.

Larry Carroll of the City Manager's Office has scheduled hearings on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. Decisions will not be made for several weeks, he said, pending results of the full building, plumbing, electrical, mechanical, fire and health inspections, which still are being scheduled.

Dispensary operators say they are on edge. They congregated in Oakland because of its liberal policy toward medical pot, but now they are fearful the businesses they have invested in will be forced to shut down.

Mark Belote of the Lemon Drop Cafe, a cozy coffee shop with a dispensary downstairs, said he is nervous. The 2-year-old cafe was hoping to expand to add a cabaret space.

"We put our hearts and souls into this place," he said. "I want to play by the rules, so we've been up front about everything. I'm hoping for the best."

To a certain extent, medical marijuana advocates welcome Oakland's new process as a further step on the road to legitimacy. Though California voters legalized medical cannabis in 1996, the federal government considers it an illegal drug and continues to prosecute those who distribute it.

Medical cannabis advocates have won some important legal victories recently, and a new state law adds regulations to the broadly worded Proposition 215.

Neighboring cities have taken varying approaches to their dispensaries. Hayward gave permission for three existing cannabis clubs to operate -- though one is being shut down following the owner's arrest -- and Berkeley has four clubs that police each other.

But neither city has issued business permits or regulated the clubs to the same extent that Oakland is doing now.

"The city of Oakland is now our co-conspirator. They (the federal government) can't bust us without busting the city of Oakland," said Richard Lee of the Bulldog Cafe, which also has a coffee shop up front and a dispensary in the back.

"I'm not as worried about the legal issues anymore, but I think limiting it to four is a very bad idea."

Oakland has been at the forefront in its support of medical marijuana, deputizing the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative (OCBC) as its official agent in 1998 to protect it from prosecution. That didn't stop the government from shutting the coop's pot operations down, however.

The OCBC is still fighting that legal battle, but the city's action sent a signal to the medical cannabis community that Oakland was friendly territory. Some estimates put the number of clubs in the city at 10, though some may be small membership cooperatives, and only seven applied for permits.

Most have set up in the triangle between 17th and 19th streets and Telegraph Avenue and Broadway, breathing new life to the downtrodden area. It's become known as Oaksterdam -- to the chagrin of those who believe the nickname hurts the image that they are strictly selling medicine.

The clubs sell cannabis in all its forms, from buds to hashish to "keif" -- a concentrate of THC chrystals -- as well as brownies, candies, oils and tinctures. Most accept only patients with identification cards issued by the OCBC, though some issue their own cards.

Most, if not all, allow smoking and other consumption of pot on site, but that too will change under the new city rules which prohibit it.

The operators argue the marketplace should determine the number of dispensaries in town. They also worry that whittling down the number, and making those that have tried to keep a low profile go through a public process, will make them targets for robberies.

Some clubs already have security cameras and at least one has bulletproof glass. One club was recently hit by an armed robbery.

In their business permit applications, the dispensaries had to lay out their operating plans, products, prices and number of patients. They paid a $644 fee that includes the building inspections. Those who receive permits will have to pay hefty annual fees of $5,000 to $20,000 to pay for the cost of city monitoring.

The hearings will take place at City Hall from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday in Hearing Room 3; 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday in Hearing Room 4; and 10 a.m. to noon Thursday in Hearing Room 3.

E-mail Laura Counts at lcounts@angnewspapers.com .

 

Suetaz

Cannabis dispensary sues over permit

Oakland's Dragonfly forced to close doors after landlord, faced with fines, starts eviction process

By Laura Counts, STAFF WRITER | Oakland Tribune | August 26, 2004

OAKLAND -- The city's process for granting special permits to cannabis dispensaries was unfair and did not take into account they already had valid business licenses, one dispensary charged in a lawsuit filed in Alameda County Superior Court Tuesday.

Plaintiff Dragonfly Alternative Healing, previously known as the 420 Cafe, was one of five applicants that did not receive permits under a new city law that took effect June 1.

Dragonfly continued to operate in defiance of new city rules, but closed on Friday after its landlord began the eviction process in response to city threats of fines, said Dragonfly owner Ken Estes.

The ordinance allows only four cannabis dispensaries to operate in the Oakland, where the clubs had felt welcome and had proliferated in the area north of City Hall known as "Oaksterdam." Only three such permits have been issued, and Dragonfly should receive one as well, the suit argues.

"We are asking the court to order the city to give them a permit, or to allow them to operate without one," said Zenia Gilg, a lawyer with the San Francisco firm of Serra Lichter Daar, which represents Dragonfly. "We are not seeking damages. We just want them to be allowed to continue to operate."

In addition, Dragonfly had a current business license before the new rules went into effect and had spent tens of thousands of dollars on its storefront, so it had a vested right to continue operations, Gilg said.

The city's new law snuffed out Oaksterdam after it permitted just one club in the area to operate. After granting a permit to California Advocates Relief Exchange (CARE) on Telegraph, City Administrator Deborah Edgerly decided to enforce a provision in the ordinance that does not permit clubs to operate within 1,000 feet of each other or of schools and other child-centered facilities.

[Suetaznote: The anti powers that be do not want part of their city named after Amsterdam, an obvious reference to a well known pot friendly city. That's what this is all about. They think their image will be tarnished, but they are really tarnishing further by not allowing enough dispensaries to to fulfill the needs of sick people. If they are going to put a limit on how many marijuana dispensaries there are, then they should limit the number of pharmacies that sell killer drugs, as well. I bet they don't do that. I wonder how many pharmacies there are in Oakland. Marijuana is a harmless medicine, and yet they are worried about dispensaries being too close to schools. They should be more worried that the children will learn that the government tries to keep healthy medicine away from those who need it. The children may grow up despising the government.]

The city also gave permits to SR71 on 17th Street and the Oakland Compassionate Resource Center on West Grand Avenue.

Dragonfly and another dispensary, The Green Door on Webster Street, continued to operate openly without permits. Oakland police began issuing them citations about three weeks ago, and then the city began the process of shutting them down through its public nuisance ordinance.

The city threatened the landlords with fines up to $1,000 a day if the dispensaries were not closed. Dragonfly landlord Mark Rutherford began a three-day eviction process last week before the dispensary agreed to close, Estes said at a City Hall press conference.

The Dragonfly should still receive the fourth permit, Estes argued Tuesday, because it had substantially met the city's criteria for receiving one and because it sells the highest-quality marijuana for the lowest prices.

"It's affordable, it's effective, and it helps the pain," said Dragonfly customer Rita Jenkins, 60, of Oakland, who was prescribed medical marijuana in March.

The City Attorney's Office had not seen the lawsuit Tuesday and declined comment, said spokeswoman Karen Boyd.

Edgerly said Tuesday she is reviewing applications for the fourth permit and will make a decision soon. However, she said Dragonfly is not a likely choice.

"We have been quite clear that those folks who continued to operate illegally are probably not going to get a nod from me," she said.

[Suetaznote: It sound to me like this woman couldn't care less about medical marijuana and how it helps people. It's about having the power to say yes or no and not about what business really deserves the permit.]

She said the process has been lengthy because four applicants who were denied permits submitted 21 alternative locations for their dispensaries and the city had to check out each one. Only four met the criteria, she said.

Dragonfly did not submit alternative locations, she said.

"They knew we were changing the rules, they just didn't get selected," she said.

A hearing on Dragonfly's case has been scheduled for Sept. 27.

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xxdr_zombiexx

There will be no healing without some form of monopolization, it seems.

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Alien Space Signal

There's no money for your issue so long as we're squandering $50 billion a year on the DrugWar. Ben Masel

Fear became the ultimate tool of this government - V.