Looks like it will be less than promised.
In a split vote Tuesday, the Monterey County Board of Supervisors cut marijuana businesses’ tax rates, in some cases by two thirds, said Luis Alejo, the board’s chairman.
Greenhouse growers, who had been staring at a $15-per-square-foot tax, will instead pay $5 per square foot while indoor cultivators will pay $8 a square foot, he said.
Can still grow your own and not have to deal with storefronts with guards or crime associated already with medical dispensaries.
Noting the difference that medical marijuana had made in her life, Karen Owen asked council members what would be served by banning the delivery of cannabis to the city.
“I’m sad to not see the tax dollars coming here to P.G.,” said Owen.
“I remember within 1,000 feet there was not a liquor store in P.G.,” said Owen, noting that it often found its way across the border of Monterey. “It’s the same situation now.”
“Why is Pacific Grove throwing away foot traffic, business and tax revenue for something that is going to be legal and never illegal again?” asked Chris Mitchell, who also spoke publicly before the council.
Former mayor Carmelita Garcia said background checks should be required for those growing pot plants.
Like Pacific Grove, Carmel, Monterey, Sand City and Soledad currently prohibit commercial cannabis activity.
The Appeals Court found that [Jhonrico] Carrnshimba: did not disclose the medical marijuana dispensary use in his application for a license to do business in Monterey, continued operation of the dispensary after it was declared an illegal use and a public nuisance, and violated the City Code prior to the city’s passage of an ordinance banning medical marijuana dispensaries, the news release stated.
Monterey medical marijuana patients’ dreams of a dispensary in their town went up in smoke Wednesday night, as City Council voted 3-2 to permanently ban dispensaries in all zones within city limits.
“I’m disappointed, but not surprised,” says Richard Rosen, the Salinas-based lawyer for MyCaregiver Cooperative, Inc., the now-defunct medical marijuana cooperative that was raided by city inspectors in February after allegedly violating a court order to stop dispensing pot. That case is still being tried in Monterey Superior Court.
Richard Rosen, lol
After a three-day hearing, Judge Lydia Villarreal asked for written final arguments from attorneys for the MyCaregiver Cooperative and directors Jhonrico Carrnshimba and Mark Rowland.
The three are accused of contempt of court for allegedly violating an October 2010 court injunction by continuing to operate as a medical marijuana outlet on Lighthouse Avenue.
The medical marijuana co-op has appealed the earlier ruling to the state Court of Appeals. To obtain the injunction, the city said the outlet violated the city’s 2010 moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries.
The owner of the New Monterey building also has gone to court to evict the co-op, but that case has been held in abeyance pending the outcome of the contempt-of-court case.
Richard Rosen, attorney for the co-op corporation, filed defense papers arguing that the injunction on which the contempt charges are based is, itself, a flawed city law.
If HIPAA rules do not apply to marijuana sellers, how can it be legally called a medicinal drug?
“He opens up a HIPPA labeled file,” says Jhonrico Carrnshimba, a MyCaregiver director. “He sees a number of files in it at this point they should close the file. They shouldn’t have these files open.”
But, Fred Cohn from the City of Monterey defends their actions.
“Medical marijuana establishments are not governed by HIPAA,” says Cohn. “The only reason that those records were compromised is because they continued to operate illegally against the court order.”
The bloody battles continue south of the borders.
Fifteen years after voters approved Proposition 215, permitting medicinal marijuana use, strong varieties like those produced in Northern California’s so-called Emerald Triangle dominate the market. Weaker Mexican pot, once the weed of choice for the 1950s Beat generation and the 1960s flower children, is less popular, according to drug policy experts and law enforcement officials.
But overall, sales of Mexican marijuana continue to earn that nation’s violent drug cartels as much as $2 billion a year.
Assistant City Manager Fred Cohn said the city filed notice Tuesday requesting the court ask MyCaregiver “to explain why it should not be held in contempt.”
Friday’s search, he said, turned up marijuana and documents indicating marijuana transactions were taking place at the co-op at 554 Lighthouse Ave.
Attorney Richard Rosen, who represents MyCaregiver co-founder Jhonrico Carr-Nshimba, said the city brought the contempt action “based on small technicalities about zoning and business licenses. It is completely ignoring the big issue, which is why is it legal everywhere else in California except Monterey?”
Sometimes it seems that the “medicine” is used primarily to treat the effects from the lack of “medicine”.
On Friday night, a woman was spotted going inside MyCaregiver and admits this isn’t her first time.
“I do have a medical marijuana card,” says client. “I probably go here once every week.”
The woman didn’t want Central Coast News to use her name, but said for the past year, she bought medical marijuana at the dispensary to treat anxiety and depression.
