MEDICINAL MARIJUANA: Sheriff Shuts Down San Francisco Pot Club
"More than two dozen sheriff's deputies" raided the Cannabis Healing Center in San Francisco yesterday morning to enforce a San Francisco Superior Court judge's order to shut it down. The AP/Sacramento Bee reports that "a locksmith let a busload of deputies in through a back door" of the club at 6 a.m., evicting seven people. Only about "three handfuls of dried marijuana and three dozen four-inch plants were found." The deputies spent the majority of the day taking inventory and changing the locks at the clinic. Deputies will continue to stand watch around the clock to make sure the facility does not reopen (Hunt, 5/26). Sheriff Michael Hennessey, who supervised the raid, said, "These folks tried their best to find a way that Proposition 215 could work, but the courts have ruled that Prop. 215 only allows an individual to grow marijuana and use it for himself or herself. Any distribution or sales is illegal. For that reason, they were closed down" (Mead/Rubenstein, San Francisco Chronicle, 5/26).
The End Of The Line?
The AP/Bee notes that yesterday represents the second time the same facility has been forced to close under court order. In recent days, both local and federal courts have ruled against the operation (5/26). The rulings effectively "ended a legal drive by state Attorney General Dan Lungren to close the San Francisco club, which he charged with being a 'drug house' that freely sold marijuana to the public at large." Hennessey said, "As far as we're concerned, it's shut down for good. The federal government is involved in this site, the state government is involved in this site. It's a pretty hot location at this point" (Reuters/Nando Times, 5/25). But Dennis Peron, the founder of both clubs at the location and self-styled gubernatorial candidate, vowed to continue his fight. "We will appeal. We will reinvent ourselves. This is a temporary setback. We will come back like the phoenix," he said (Chronicle, 5/26).