CA: Fresno, CA Police Chief Says She Will Go After Pot Even If it Is Legalized

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burnin1

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This Women has been a nemesis to many of us who are fighting for safe access to medical cannabis. She has directed her Sheriffs to raid medical cannabis grows on many occasions. She does not care about the state laws she is supposed to abide by. She touts federal law and public safety as her reasons for being against medical cannabis. Now she is saying if we vote to legalize she will not recognize cannabis as legal. Why do morons who tout freedom and liberty vote for this woman? ~ Burnin1
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From abc30.com

Fresno County authorities sound off on proposed marijuana legalization in California

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Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims at a medical grow raid

KFSN
By Jessica Peres

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) --
Voters will once again get to decide whether recreational marijuana should be legal in California.

Proponents of the measure gained enough signatures to get it on the ballot this November.





Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims says she would still try and enforce their local moratorium on marijuana to try and prevent pot use locally even if it's legalized.

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Sheriff Mims keeping the public safe by raiding a medical marijuana grow

We did talk to some medical marijuana users who said they will be heading to the polls this November to throw their support behind the legalization of marijuana in California.

For the second time since 2010, voters in California will decide whether the most populous state in the United States should legalize recreational marijuana.

"I think it's a good idea," a medical marijuana user who did not want to be identified said. "So, we won't have too many of the neighborhood drug dealers."

The Fresno resident says she just got her medical marijuana card Wednesday to help her relax and relieve pain.

She thinks it'll create a safer environment for people who want to smoke or ingest marijuana and cut down on crime.

"And I don't vote," she said. "This time, I will vote."

The proposed new law promises lower crime rates and increased revenue from the taxes placed on legal pot.

Mims, though, doesn't think the measure will pass, adding if people have learned anything from Colorado and Washington where marijuana was legalized in 2012, they'll vote against it.

"Now you have a whole new set of regulations and that says people under 21 can't smoke marijuana but they do," she said. "You can't smoke it in public but they do. You can't do a lot of things but they are and law enforcement are busier than ever dealing with marijuana areas."

She also says, according to the organization Smart Approaches to Marijuana, more children are trying marijuana in those states because it's more accessible.

While the Fresno County Sheriff's Office can't enforce federal law, Mims says the county can create its own zoning regulations to prohibit marijuana.

"Local municipalities can still fashion their own ordinances, so that's a good thing," she said. "We need to be able to have that ability."


http://abc30.com/1407374/
 
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Sheriff is an elected position. Lets hope that the voters say no to her next time she is up for reelection. Wonder what her justification will be if the feds move cannabis to Schedule II?
 
She is an *****. The ppl need to remove her smartass from office.
 
I said this in another thread--is there some unwritten ruylt sheriffs have to be fat and out of shape?
 
Thats why the ******** shoot you for running.
 
A cop should not be allowed on the force looking like that. Freaking Ridiculous.
 
Ahh Fresno County. I have been to Fresno many times. I have bought weed there and clones years ago before the City shut down the medical marijuana dispensaries. Those of you who grow in the valley have it tough in most areas. ~ Burnin1
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From thedailychrinic.com

California: Medical Marijuana Patients Fight Fresno County

FRESNO, CA — Fresno County uses an unconstitutional ordinance to uproot medical marijuana patients’ legal plants and fine them $1,000 per plant without judicial process, patients claim in court.

One plaintiff, who has muscular dystrophy and is on disability, faces a fine of $87,000 and sheriff’s deputies took all of his plants.

The county is using the ordinance as a cash cow, having imposed $2 million in fines already, with another $8 million in the works, according to the June 19 complaint in Superior Court.

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Dwayne Alvares, Richard Hickingbottom and John Doe seek writ of mandate and an injunction against Fresno County and Sheriff Margaret Mims. They say the county’s enforcement of its medical marijuana ordinance violates equal protection and due process rights under the state and federal constitutions.

The ordinance, adopted in 2014 and amended this year, prohibits cultivation of medical marijuana and marijuana dispensaries, as public nuisances. Medical marijuana plants can be uprooted and their owners fined $1,000 per plant.

Brenda Linder, attorney for the growers, said that the lawsuit is not contesting the county’s right to legislate locally and to regulate marijuana cultivation, but that the language of the law allows the county to bypass notice and violate due process.

The ordinance allows the county to rip out the medical marijuana plants and fine the growers or property owners at the same time, without prior notice, Linder said.

“You can’t just routinely do a summary abatement and you can’t do a summary imposition of fines,” Linder said. “You’re talking about a lot of money and something that is correctable. The fine is supposed to be something to gain compliance, not be a punishment.”

The Sheriff’s Office says medical marijuana growers attract crime and violence, and bring loitering, increased traffic, noise and loss of trade for businesses.

The Fresno County Board of Supervisors concurred, finding that medical marijuana cultivation poses a threat to the public peace, health and safety. If unregulated, large quantities of illegal marijuana will be introduced into the local market in the near future, the ordinance says.

“In order to deter the cultivation of marijuana on a scale that creates the danger and risk to public health and safety recited above, substantial administrative fine amounts are necessary,” according to the ordinance, which is attached to the lawsuit as an exhibit.

In early 2014, sheriff’s deputies and county employees began seizing and destroying medical marijuana plants from qualified patients without notice to patients or the property owners, often through coerced consent, according to the growers.

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The growers are fined though they do not refuse to abate upon notice or try to stop the deputies from taking out their plants.

“These are not cases where the accused violator has somehow avoided or refused to comply after being contacted of a potential violation,” the complaint states. “Defendants continue to state in public venues that these ordinances are ‘necessary’ to curtail illegal activity; however, these ordinances only apply to ‘medical marijuana’ plants cultivated by qualified patients. There remain a plethora of penal statutes available to defendants to eradicate and/or prosecute and curtail truly illegal activity. As stated in these ordinances, the main purpose of this ordinance is to ‘punish’ medical marijuana patients.”

The “enforcement of a $1,000 per item fine, without notice, is constitutionally excessive, draconian and is not authorized by any state statute,” the growers say.

Linder said that medical marijuana patients qualified under state law are not given the same due process considerations as alleged violators of other county ordinances, such as those who create fire hazards during this extreme drought.

“I’ve done the homework, and nowhere else in nuisance abatement or administrative fine ordinances do they charge a per item fine,” Linder said. “In cases of fire hazards and weed abatement, people are given a reasonable amount of time to correct the problem – anywhere from 10 to 30 days – and they don’t charge you per weed or per bush that’s dry. They don’t charge ‘per item’ in any of those.”

Fresno County imposed more than $1.97 million in fines against 38 people for citations involving 18 properties, the complaint states.

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“Additionally, more than $8 million in cannabis cultivation fines are pending against persons who have been criminally charged but whose appeal hearings have not yet been held,” it states.

Those who do not pay the fines run could be subjected to liens or special tax assessments, Linder said.

Gov. Jerry Brown has twice vetoed a bill that would allow collection of an administrative fine through property taxes.

“It is not authorized under state law,” Linder said. “This can be very, very damaging.”

“If people don’t get to court or don’t get in front of a judge that actually applies the law, and they don’t get these fines reversed, they could potentially be losing their homes down the road because of the way the county is enforcing this.”

Richard Hickingbottom, who suffers from “a severe form of muscular dystrophy and is on disability,” says he was coerced by heavily armed deputies acting as “code enforcement officials” into granting them “consent” to pull his 87 medical marijuana plants.

“Hickingbottom, out of fear of threatened arrest, allowed the deputies to ‘confiscate’ his medicinal plants on that same day. The deputies then presented Hickingbottom with two ‘notices’ purportedly imposing $87,000 in administrative fines, after the plants had been pulled,” the complaint states.

A grower in a similar situation was recently handed a victory by Fresno County Superior Court Judge Dale Ikeda.

In that case, deputies went to the home of Xiongh Thao in March 2014 and told him he needed to get rid of the 99 plants he was growing with a medical marijuana recommendation, but they did not cite him or issue an abatement order at that time.

Thao removed the plants, which the deputies verified three days later when they checked on the property. Despite this, the deputies issued a 15-day notice to abate, then sent Thao an administrative citation imposing a $99,000 fine.

Thao – also represented by Linder – appealed, but the Board of Supervisors voted to uphold the fine plus interest of 10 percent per month.

Judge Ikeda reversed imposition of the fine on June 12, stating that the board “had no legal authority to impose an administrative fine or penalty when Thao removed the marijuana plants prior to the expiration of the abatement period.”

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Medical Grow Raid

Although the county argued that cultivation of marijuana is a danger to the public and is not a zoning issue, Ikeda said there was no evidence that Thao’s plants created an immediate danger to health or safety.

The county was required to give Thao a “notice of the uses or conditions constituting the nuisance to be abated and ‘a reasonable period of time … for a person responsible for a continuing violation to correct or otherwise remedy the violation prior to the imposition of administrative fines or penalties,'” Ikeda ruled.

The county changed the forms it uses when imposing the fines and amended its ordinance this year to clarify its enforcement and notification requirements, but the growers say the amendments merely make the county’s 15-day notice procedures optional.

County officials continue to argue “that their ordinance provides an avenue for them to do as they please; that every single medical marijuana plant, regardless of factual circumstances, creates an ‘immediate threat’ justifying summary action and deprivation,” the complaint states.

The growers seek a restraining order and injunction prohibiting the county from enforcing the ordinance.

The county did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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http://www.thedailychronic.net/2015/44529/california-
medical-marijuana-patients-fight-fresno-county/
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The Valley is flush with meth houses and they worry about people growing a non-toxic flower. ~ Burnin1


 
Thats because its safer busting layed back chilled potheads ,,,then it is crazy asss Methheads.
 
The Central Valley has its share haters, but it's going to be growing more weed than any where else in Cali in another year.
 
I lived in the Central valley once for 15 years. I don't hate the Central Valley.

California's Central Valley feeds the world. The Potential to grow legal cannabis there is mind blowing.

I hate how many there view cannabis and I hate in that in many areas they elect City Councilmen, County Supervisors, Sheriffs, Mayors ect. that restrict the rights of medical marijuana growers and patients.

Tulare County
Merced County
Fresno County
Madera County

I have been to these places. I have spoken before the Board of Supervisors and had them look at me if I were the scum of the earth. I used to wear a sports jacket and a tie at these things, short hair, clean cut. I did not look scary or the stereotype of a stoner. Their prejudice against cannabis made them see me as a dumb stoner even though I was articulate and polite, well groomed and well dressed. I am no stranger to the prejudices against cannabis in some of these Central Valley areas.

It is a tough battle to educate the voting public about cannabis in some of these places. The mind set against cannabis in many Central valley areas makes it harder for growers.

I tip my hat to you Umbra. All the best to you and your grows in the coming years.
 
IMO, giving these local yahoos the right to make laws like this is simply wrong. I live in a county in Oregon that the county commissioners voted againts having dispensaries.....but everywhere you go you can gamble. Jeez, even the Denny's has a bar and poker and slot machines. Idaho politics is ruling eastern Oregon cannabis laws.
 
Nice Burnin' we are neighbors. Yes..I work with the CCA board of directors. Creating change bro!
 

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