Crackdown worries Fresno dispensaries, Prop. 215 patients

 Dispensaries
Oct 162011
 

The federal government’s vow to clamp down on medical marijuana this month comes as a boon to Fresno County authorities who have recently begun enforcing their own restrictions. Since a new county law took effect a month ago, sheriff’s deputies have sent notices to a dozen medical pot dispensaries and roughly 100 growers demanding they close up shop. Deputies have yet to follow through on the demands but say federal support will make that task easier, Kurtis Alexander reports in the Fresno Bee. “We’ve needed federal help and prosecution shutting these places down,” Sheriff Margaret [...]

Fresno collective operators face federal marijuana charges

 Courts
Oct 052011
 

A father and his son – owners of two Fresno-area marijuana collectives raided in June – were arrested Tuesday morning on suspicion of continuing to possess and distribute pot, according to a federal criminal complaint. Mark Stephen Bagdasarian, 53, and Ryan Christopher Bagdasarian, 24, owners of Buds 4 Life and Buds 4 Life North, were taken into custody around 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, about the same time search warrants were served at the elder Bagdasarian’s Clovis home and their collectives in Tarpey Village and Friant. Law-enforcement officers seized processed marijuana, food products believed to contain marijuana [...]

Sierra pot growers moving to Central Valley, police say

 Marijuana News
Sep 032011
 

Illegal marijuana farming has been moving from the Sierra foothills and mountains to the Valley floor, law enforcement officials say, and they suspect it has something to do with California’s controversial medical marijuana law. The theory is that growers, facing increased law enforcement pressure, have abandoned mountain and foothill hideouts and headed to the Valley because of the opportunity to grow black market marijuana under the veil of legality, Lewis Griswold reports in the Fresno Bee. For the past three years, authorities have found fewer pot farms on public lands in the Sierra Nevada and [...]

Fresno County sheriff’s deputies raid Centerville dispensary

 Marijuana News
Aug 202011
 

Fresno County sheriff’s deputies on Thursday shut down a Centerville medical marijuana dispensary that Sheriff Margaret Mims said was operating illegally. The dispensary, called Herbal Solutions, is in a historic building that once housed an Independent Order of Odd Fellows lodge. Mims said the woman who operates the dispensary would face state charges because Herbal Solutions was opened after the Fresno County Board of Supervisors enacted a moratorium last summer against any new medical-marijuana stores. The owner also could face federal charges because the dispensary is within 1,000 feet of a school – Centerville Elementary, [...]

Columnist: Fresno MMJ law a ‘win-win’ for dope dealers

 Opinion
Aug 092011
 

Marijuana cultivation is out of control in Fresno County. When men in gun turrets protect plots, medical marijuana plants are diverted to street sales and residents complain that dispensaries foul their neighborhoods, the county has a problem. Criminals and a poorly written medical marijuana law passed by California voters bear the blame, writes Fresno Bee columnist Bill McEwen. So, too, does a Fresno County Board of Supervisors that refused to confront the reality of what voters approved in 1996. Instead of adopting regulations that protected neighborhoods while allowing people that need marijuana for medical reasons [...]

Fresno Bee to host medical cannabis live chat Monday

 Media
Aug 072011
 

Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims and local attorneys Rick Horowitz and Brenda Linder will debate local regulation of medical marijuana and answer online questions in a one-hour chat beginning at 10:30 a.m. Monday on fresnobeehive.com/news. Fresno County supervisors are expected to enact a ban on medical-marijuana dispensaries at their meeting Tuesday, the Fresno Bee reports. But advocates of the drug are preparing to launch a signature drive to overturn the ban, and local dispensary owners are vowing legal action to block the law.

Cities object to Fresno County’s outdoor cultivation ban

 Dispensaries
Jul 262011
 

Fresno County leaders are facing a last-ditch effort to block their new medical marijuana restrictions – but not just from advocates of the drug. The cities of Selma and Fowler are asking the county to reconsider its ordinance out of fear it will push the marijuana trade into their backyards, Kurtis Alexander reports in the Fresno Bee. The county regulation – approved by supervisors July 12 but requiring a second vote next month – bans storefront marijuana sales in unincorporated communities, but it allows indoor cultivation in select industrial areas, including the outskirts of cities [...]

Fresno County dispensary ban passes first reading

 Dispensaries
Jul 122011
 

11:55 a.m.: Dozens packed the Fresno County Board of Supervisors’ chambers this morning to protest efforts to rein in the local medical marijuana trade. But the objections fell short. Amid the vocal and at times unruly crowd, supervisors unanimously approved an ordinance that would shut down the county’s more than 15 storefront pot dispensaries and confine marijuana cultivation to a handful of industrial areas. The law must be voted on a second time before taking effect, Kurtis Alexander reports in the Fresno Bee. The second hearing is scheduled for Aug. 9. Updated Fresno Bee story [...]

Fresno County dispensary ban set for hearing

 Dispensaries
Jul 072011
 

Fresno County supervisors will consider a permanent ban on dispensaries and strict limits on medical cannabis cultivation when a draft ordinance receives its first hearing Tuesday. The draft ordinance differs from an earlier version presented to supervisors in December, primarily by banning dispensaries entirely instead of regulating the collectives that operate them. But several provisions remain, including a ban on smoking medical cannabis except at patients’ personal residences; a total ban on outdoor cultivation; and strict limits on indoor cultivation that would make compliance difficult, if not impossible. The submission of patient names to local [...]

Fresno dispensaries await ordinance, more raids

 Dispensaries
Jun 102011
 

Linda Nebeker says she’s been losing a lot of sleep thinking about the future of her medical marijuana dispensary. The head of the Fig Garden’s Central Valley Collective saw five medical marijuana dispensaries raided by sheriff’s deputies last week — a sweep she thinks was unwarranted — and she fears she may be next. More worrisome for her, however, is that the county is drafting regulations that are expected to ban, or at least severely restrict, the 20 or so storefront marijuana outlets now in operation, including hers. The ordinance, whose details are still being [...]

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