Pubdate: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 Source: Orange County Register, The (CA) Copyright: 2015 The Orange County Register Contact: http://www.ocregister.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/321 Author: Martin Wisckol SANTA ANA POT SHOP REGULATIONS LEAD TO CHAOS Santa Ana emerged as the first city in the county to try to rein in rogue marijuana dispensaries by regulating their operations, but the result so far is a messy chaos of police raids, lawsuits and allegations that the city's pot-shop lottery was rigged. City voters in November approved two ballot measures regulating dispensaries: One put on the ballot by medicinal marijuana advocates and a more restrictive countermeasure advocated by the City Council. The council's proposal, Measure BB, became law because it received more votes than rival Measure CC. But a Superior Court judge earlier this month issued a temporary injunction blocking issuance of dispensary permits. A hearing on that lawsuit scheduled for today is the next step toward determining whether the city should throw out the permits approved for 20 dispensaries and hold another lottery to determine who is allowed to operate. That's just one aspect of the new law that seems to have gone sour, despite hopes that it would finally provide the city with a legal framework for dispensaries and take them out from their shadowy, semi-legal status they've operated under since voters statewide approved legal medical pot 19 years ago. "I was happy at the end of the day that one of the measures passed and it passed by a large margin" with 66 percent of the vote, said Kandice Hawes, founder and executive director of the Orange County chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). Hawes co-authored the losing Measure CC. And while she favored that measure, she thought Measure BB would at least accomplish the goal of legitimizing medical pot shops. "It could be a model for other cities," she said. Now she's not so sure. "It's frustrating and it kind of worries me," Hawes said. "If a judge decides to throw it all out, we could be back at square one." That's exactly what happened in Long Beach after pot shop lottery losers sued, saying the 2009 city-approved process was unfair, and the courts agreed. The city then banned dispensaries outright, and continues to battle lawsuits related to the debacle. lottery concerns In Santa Ana, three losers in the Feb. 5 lottery for 20 permits have sued, asking for a lottery do-over. The suit claims the city included applicants in the lottery pool that didn't qualify because they submitted multiple applications for the same location under the same name or because the entities were legally formed after the lottery application deadline. Thirty-four of the approximately 630 applications are listed in the lawsuit as noncompliant. But attorney Tin Kim Westen of the Rallo Law Firm, which is representing the plaintiffs, estimated there were more than 80 applications that should have been disqualified - which would have increased her clients' odds. Robert Cortez, special assistant to the Santa Ana city manager, said the city declined comment on issues related to pending lawsuits. That includes a separate suit filed Monday seeking to throw out Measure BB altogether. It claims that the lottery process was flawed, the law was improperly implemented and that Mayor Miguel Pulido and other unnamed city officials had financial interest in marijuana collectives seeking permits and received gifts from collectives. Pulido, through spokesman George Urch, said he has no financial stake in collectives and that he had not received gifts or money from them. He said he was not involved with the Measure BB campaign. None of the other six council members returned emails and phone calls for comment. Council members Sal Tinajero, Angelica Amezcua and Vincent Sarmiento signed the ballot arguments in favor of Measure BB. The lawsuit filed Monday by members of the Sky High Holistic collective also claims that an unnamed person hired by the city solicited $25,000 campaign contributions for Measure BB and promised "successful inclusion in the lottery." Campaign finance disclosures show contributions from some people involved with collectives. But the lawsuit does not name who allegedly "bought" lottery spots or how the lottery was manipulated. The raid The lawsuit by the Sky High Holistic collective, which failed to win a lottery permit, also seeks damages for a May raid on its dispensary. The raid by Santa Ana police was highly publicized, in large measure because of video captured by one of the shop's security cameras. The footage shows eight officers three wearing ski masks breaking through a door with guns drawn, ordering people to the floor and breaking security cameras. It shows one officer eating food product apparently from the shop. Additionally, one officer refers to a dispensary collective member with an amputated leg and says, "I was about to kick her in her (expletive) nub." The Police Department has said it is investigating officer behavior in the incident. The lawsuit says there was "excessive and unreasonable force" used, tens of thousands of dollars in damages and thousands of dollars of money and marijuana medication taken. The raid was not a surprise to Marla James, the collective member with the amputated leg. "We kind of expected it to be raided because all the other ones were," she said. NORML's Hawes estimated 100 dispensaries were operating in Santa Ana without permits. She added that 11 people were taken to jail after the raid and others, including herself, were given citations for running a dispensary without a permit. What neither James nor Sky High's lawsuit mention is that a policy approved by the City Council in November approved a four-step process for shutting down illegal dispensaries. Arrests are to be "the last resort" after a series of other steps, including disconnection of the shops' water and electricity. James said the dispensary's utilities weren't disconnected until after the raid. A solution While Santa Ana is the first Orange County city to try to regulate the dispensaries, it's unlikely to be the last. Laguna Woods actually had a law in place before Santa Ana, but the absence of available retail space has kept anyone from applying for permits. In Costa Mesa, two proposals have qualified for the November 2016 ballot. City Councilman Jim Righeimer is well aware - and wary - of problems associated with regulation of dispensaries. "The state should regulate this," Righeimer said. "There's too much money involved with these for a city to be handling it." In fact, two pending bills in Sacramento call for state oversight of dispensaries. Righeimer was adamant that a lottery is a poor way to go about selecting dispensaries or anything else of significant value that is government regulated. He pointed to federal lotteries for wireless frequencies, which have attracted thousands of applicants whose primary interest is winning the lottery so they can immediately sell the right to the frequency. "Everybody knows when you do a lottery, the system will get gamed," he said. He noted that Santa Ana dispensary applicants have met with him because of an interest in setting up shop in Costa Mesa. "I know guys who bought a building in Santa Ana and literally put applications in for Suite A, B, C, D and E, because they are each different addresses," Righeimer said. Westen, a plaintiffs' lawyer on one of the lawsuits, said that the scheme described by Righeimer - as well as having multiple individuals submit separate applications for the same address - were tactics used in the Santa Ana lottery. Because they are allowed under Measure BB, they are not targeted in the suit. Neither of the qualified measures for Costa Mesa's ballot next year employ lotteries. The failed Measure CC would have used a first-come approach to applications. But even with a non-lottery selection system, Righeimer sees difficulties. "The easiest single way would be to get Congress to reclassify it so Walgreens and CVS can sell it like other prescription drugs," he said. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom