City officials appeal Lake Forest dispensary ruling

 Dispensaries
Mar 072012
 

LAKE FOREST – City officials on Tuesday announced that they will seek the California Supreme Court’s review on a ruling by the Fourth District Court of Appeal that last week said cities cannot shut down a medical marijuana dispensary that cultivates its own marijuana. “It’s a decision that impacts every city,” said Jeff Dunn, an attorney representing Lake Forest in its efforts to clear nearly 40 medical marijuana dispensaries from the city over the last two years. “It’s the only decision that says a city cannot ban a dispensary for being a dispensary. It’s the [...]

Court ruling backs dispensaries that grow on-site

 Dispensaries
Mar 022012
 

California cities may not ban medical marijuana dispensaries, but the operations may sell only weed that is grown on site, an appeals court ruled in an Orange County case. The unanimous decision by a three-judge Court of Appeal panel in Santa Ana was the first in the state to prohibit cities from enacting zoning restrictions that effectively ban all marijuana dispensaries. The court was also the first to rule that dispensaries must grow the marijuana they sell, a requirement that would force most of them out of business, Maura Dolan reports in the Los Angeles [...]

Feds take over murder case against Humboldt grower

 Marijuana News
Mar 022012
 

A 29-year-old Eureka man has been indicted by a federal grand jury on murder and drug charges stemming from a 2010 shooting at a Kneeland marijuana farm and now potentially faces the death penalty in the case. The U.S. Attorney’s Office announced the indictment Thursday, five months after a Humboldt County Superior Court judge ruled there was sufficient evidence to hold Mikal Xylon Wilde to stand trial on charges that he murdered Mario Roberto Juarez-Madrid at the scene of a Kneeland marijuana grow. While Wilde faced a potential sentence of 25 years to life in [...]

Long Beach dispensary ban faces court challenge

 Ordinances
Mar 012012
 

LONG BEACH — A two-week-old ban on medical marijuana collectives in the city will be challenged in Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday. Opponents of the law are seeking an injunction to prohibit enforcement of the ban after a panel of Fourth Appellate District judges on Wednesday ruled that Lake Forest officials couldn’t use that city’s nuisance abatement ordinance as a wholesale ban on medical marijuana dispensaries and collectives. Lake Forest officials may use their nuisance ordinance to regulate the dispensaries and collectives, but can’t just declare them a nuisance, thereby banning them, according to [...]

Wagner defends California dispensary crackdown

 Marijuana News
Mar 012012
 

As the top federal prosecutor in Sacramento was announcing a new focus on huge pot farms in the Central Valley on Tuesday, a U.S. district judge delivered a separate blow to efforts to thwart crackdowns on medical marijuana. U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. dismissed one of five suits that had been filed in federal courts last fall in a bid to win legal support for medical marijuana use in California and other states. Burrell’s order came in a suit filed in federal court in Sacramento last November on behalf of the El Camino [...]

Lake Forest dispensary wins court reprieve

 Dispensaries
Mar 012012
 

LAKE FOREST – A panel of appellate court justices in Santa Ana Wednesday overturned a lower court judge’s injunction shutting down a medical marijuana collective in Lake Forest. Fourth Appellate District Justices William Rylaarsdam and Richard D. Fybel, led by Richard M. Aronson, ruled that city officials cannot use their nuisance abatement ordinance as a wholesale ban on medical marijuana dispensaries and collectives. The justices struck down a preliminary injunction from Orange County Superior Court Judge David Chaffee in May 2010 that would have shut down the Evergreen Holistic Collective. A stay on the injunction [...]

Redding dispensary ban awaits court ruling

 Dispensaries
Feb 252012
 

Nearly three months after Redding outlawed medical marijuana dispensaries, the city and the dispensaries may get a court decision Monday on the legality of that ban. Lawyers for the city and seven Redding dispensaries on Monday will appear before Shasta County Superior Court Judge Stephen Baker, who will hear arguments on the city’s request for a preliminary injunction — an order for the dispensaries to comply with the ban. At stake in the case is whether the dispensaries can remain open or the city’s ban will stand with court backing, Sean Longoria reports in the [...]

Former Stanislaus deputy faces pot-growing charge

 Marijuana News
Feb 252012
 

A judge Friday scheduled a trial to start Sept. 25 for a former Stanislaus County sheriff’s detective accused of four felony charges, including embezzling from the Sheriff’s Department and cultivating marijuana. Defendant Kari Abbey initially was charged with second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter in connection with the off-duty shooting death of Rita Elias, 31, who brandished a BB gun during a confrontation with Abbey in September 2010. At the end of Abbey’s preliminary hearing in December, Superior Court Judge Ricardo Córdova dismissed the murder and manslaughter charges, Rosalio Ahumada reports in the Modesto Bee. The [...]

Shasta sheriff faces claim over seized marijuana

 Courts
Feb 222012
 

A woman who owns land in the Round Mountain area has filed a claim against Shasta County alleging deputies unlawfully searched her property and destroyed hundreds of pounds of legally grown marijuana there. Filed by Santa Rosa attorney Joe Rogoway on behalf of Esmeralda Sanchez Garcia, 25, the claim is the precursor to a lawsuit, Alayna Shulman reports in the Redding Record Searchlight. It alleges agents with the Shasta County Marijuana Eradication Team searched Sanchez Garcia’s Dunn Moody Road property without a warrant and destroyed more than 800 pounds of legally grown marijuana, violating her [...]

Long Beach gives dispensaries 6 months to close

 Dispensaries
Feb 152012
 

LONG BEACH – The Long Beach City Council on Tuesday voted 8-1 to ban medical marijuana collectives but to exempt 18 city-approved operators for six months. City Attorney Robert Shannon had sought an outright ban after an appeals court in October ruled that the city’s 2010 permit process for the collectives violated federal law prohibiting the sale and distribution of marijuana. The ban motion, proposed by Councilman Robert Garcia, protects collectives who participated in the city’s process “in good faith” while the California Supreme Court considers the city’s appeal Pack v. Long Beach. The city [...]

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