I’ve written previously about the pot growers of Mendocino County. Today’s LAT reports on a new development.
Mendocino County set up a program to register medical marijuana growers:
Those who registered with the sheriff had to install security fencing and cameras, pay permitting fees up to $6,450 a year and undergo inspections four times a year. Every plant was given a zip-tie with a sheriff’s serial number on it.
The DEA raided the first person who registered.
Still, 91 growers signed up the next year.
Agents then targeted Matt Cohen, the grower most vocal in advocating for the program and getting it set up.
In spite of this, the county intended to continue registering growers:
But county officials stopped the permitting and inspections in March after the U.S. attorney threatened them with legal action. The federal subpoena landed in October, demanding records of inspections, applications, internal county emails, notes, memos and bank account numbers.
The county is now fighting the subpoenas. Three things about this:
Meanwhile, in local news: Austin has a moderately successful chains of bars known as “Little Woodrow’s”. The owners want to put a new location at 5425 Burnet, but they need a zoning change first. Here’s 5425 Burnet on Google Maps:
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This is a stretch of road I’m fairly familiar with; there’s not much along there except strip centers and stand-alone businesses. As the Statesman notes, there’s a mixed-use apartment/shopping development (with a parking garage) right across the street, which Little Woodrow’s hopes to cater to. There’s two bars close by that I can think of: Ginny’s Little Longhorn Saloon, mentioned in the article, which is also famous for chicken (stuff) bingo, and Billy’s on Burnet (which does very good hamburgers and has limited parking).
Anyway, the point is: the usual suspects – the Brentwood and Allandale neighborhood associations – are all butthurt over this, claiming there won’t be enough parking, the bar would be too noisy, yadda yadda. In spite of their opposition, “the opponents are short by roughly half the number of signatures needed on a petition that would require six of seven council members to approve the rezoning”. They had two votes against in a preliminary vote: Laura Morrison and Kathie Tovo.
(On a completely unrelated note: anyone got any experience organizing recall elections?)