Timing of Vallejo dispensary raids questioned

 Dispensaries
Mar 162012
 

The timing of a series of recent Vallejo police raids of medical marijuana dispensaries is being questioned by some Vallejo City Council members. “I have asked the city manager three weeks ago … how did we start preparing a raid at the same time we were putting this on the ballot — and so we had two ends of the city working on opposite directions, and I want to know why,” Councilwoman Stephanie Gomes said at Tuesday’s Council meeting. “And I want to know who made the decision to give up a $250,000-a-year tax.” Gomes [...]

Humboldt slaying suspect to stand trial in S.F.

 Law Enforcement
Mar 142012
 

Mikal Xylon Wilde sat in the federal courthouse in Eureka on Monday and pleaded not guilty to a six-count felony indictment charging him with murder and drug offenses stemming from a 2010 slaying on a Kneeland marijuana farm. Wilde, 29, stands accused of shooting and killing Mario Roberto Juarez-Madrid and seriously wounding Fernando Lopez, both of Santa Rosa, Guatemala, at the scene of his large-scale marijuana grow on Aug. 25, 2010. This will be the first Humboldt County murder to be prosecuted federally in decades, according to multiple law enforcement sources. The shootings allegedly occurred [...]

Siskiyou deputies hit growers with ‘compliance checks’

 Law Enforcement
Mar 142012
 

DUNSMUIR — Siskiyou County Sheriff Jon Lopey said he plans to meet with detectives who conducted recent medical marijuana “compliance checks” in Dunsmuir to ensure they’re relaying correct information to the public. He said the Sheriff’s Office will abide by doctor recommendations for marijuana amounts and that any misinformation put out by deputies and detectives will be corrected. Lopey stated in an interview earlier this week that cooperating with deputies doing compliance checks is completely voluntary. Earlier this month, Dunsmuir residents reported that sheriff’s deputies, in some cases accompanied by a detective, made unannounced visits [...]

Zip ties recommended for Mendocino growers

 Cultivation
Mar 022012
 

The Mendocino County district attorney is advising medical marijuana growers to tag their plants with sheriff-issued zip ties to lessen their chances of prosecution. “Participation (in the zip-tie program) will continue to be one factor considered by the prosecuting attorney if allegations come before him of criminal wrongdoing,” Mendocino County District Attorney David Eyster said in a written statement issued Thursday afternoon. Skeptics question whether it’s a good idea to register pot-growing operations with the sheriff’s office, given the recent federal crackdown on cooperatives, dispensaries and the people who rent to them, Glenda Anderson reports [...]

Teacher arrested in Humboldt marijuana sweep

 Crime
Mar 012012
 

A marijuana bust Wednesday reportedly found a local elementary school teacher with almost $400,000 in cash and ties to a large-scale indoor growing operation, capping two days of marijuana-related enforcement activity. While completely unrelated, the two busts — one near Kneeland on Wednesday and the other in a remote region of Northwestern Humboldt County on Tuesday — underscore many of the issues surrounding the local marijuana industry: Copious amounts of cash, environmental risks and clandestine activities on timber lands carried out by men with guns. Wednesday, agents with the California Department of Justice — with [...]

Input sought on Yuba County growing ordinance

 Ordinances
Mar 012012
 

Both Yuba County supervisors named to a committee to further study the issue of medical marijuana growing in residential neighborhoods said they want to listen to all parties to create an ordinance to regulate the issue. A day after a proposed ordinance died at a board public hearing because it couldn’t get a majority of votes, Supervisor John Nicoletti, who didn’t attend the hearing because he said he had a conflict with a culinary class he’s teaching at Yuba College, said he felt it had some good elements, Ben van der Meer reports in the [...]

AP report: Fed MMJ offensive produces mixed results

 Marijuana News
Feb 262012
 

Residents of Mendocino County, the redwood and marijuana-rich territory in California’s fabled Emerald Triangle, thought they had reached detente in the decades-old clash between pot growers and local law enforcement two years ago when the sheriff agreed to stop raiding medical cannabis producers who paid to have their crops inspected. For a $1,500 fee and adherence to rules over water usage, odor control and distance from neighbors, marijuana farmers working for groups of patients could grow up to 99 plants on five acres of land. Numbered red zip ties had be affixed to each plant, [...]

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 [...]

Feds, cops, state tax board raid Vallejo dispensary

 Dispensaries
Feb 222012
 

The operator of one of Vallejo’s more prominent medical marijuana dispensaries was arrested Tuesday, following a raid on his home, business and associated properties by federal, state and local law enforcement agents. Almost 800 plants were seized from the different locations, police said, Jessica A. York reports in the Vallejo Times-Herald. Matthew Shotwell, operator and founder of Greenwell Cooperative at 616 Marin St., was arrested, said Vallejo Police Lt. Ken Weaver. Shotwell was arrested on one count each of cultivation of marijuana, possession of marijuana for sale and of operating a location that supplies marijuana, [...]

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 [...]

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