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Earlier this year, Tulare County officials announced new strategies intended to stem the increasing number of medical marijuana grow sites in the county.
They include fines for each day a grow site operated in violation of the county's medical marijuana ordinance, threatening property owners who leased their land with the same fines and other costs as the growers, and the threat of the federal government seizing the properties.
As far as Tulare County Sheriff's Lt. Tom Sigley is concerned, those efforts are paying off, because at this time last year, the department knew of 605 medical gardens in the unincorporated areas of the county.
Currently, his investigators know of 304, mostly in rural areas, he said.
In fact, Sigley said some of the growers started pulling their marijuana plants out of the ground right away after the Tulare County Board of Supervisors approved the new strategy in May.
And this year, the Sheriff's Department began sending warning letters to people with grow sites. About 65 percent to 70 percent of the people quit growing marijuana after receiving the letters.
"We didn't send letters last year," he said, explaining that the letters his department sends explain that marijuana growers are violating federal law and continued violations could result in the federal government seizing their properties.
"We are basically working a joint operation this year with the feds called 'Operation Mercury,' " Sigley said.
The program, which includes five other Valley counties, involves deputies here investigating properties where medical marijuana is grown and looking for factors that could be used by federal prosecutors to take the land from the owner, Sigley explained.
And it's not just in cases in which the growers and property owner are charged with criminal violations, said Lauren Harwood, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Federal prosecutors can file separate, civil forfeiture motions by showing marijuana growing has occurred at a location – which remains a federal crime despite California's Compassionate Use Act – or marijuana was sold or transported there even if the evidence isn't sufficient to go forward with criminal prosecutions, she explained.
So far, such actions have been focused on large growers and distributors suspected of using the guise of being medical marijuana growers to attempt to hide illegal activities.
For example, in July the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California announced plans to seize the leased building housing Oakland's Harborside Health Center, the largest medical marijuana dispensary in the state.
The U.S. Attorney is seeking the land because marijuana is being distributed on the premises, in violation of federal law. But the operators of Harborside have said the federal effort is unjustified, because they follow California's medical marijuana law.
No attempts have been made this year by federal prosecutors to seize medical marijuana garden sites in Tulare County.
Still, the threat of property seizures seems to be having an effect, said Sigley, noting that he believes part of the reason is that warning letters aren't just being sent to the people operating the grow sites here, but also to landowners who lease the land.
"And a lot of them are absentee owners, and they don't know what's going on," until they receive letters from the Sheriff's Department or the County Counsel's Office, he said. "A lot of them are filing eviction notices."
Letters also are being sent to mortgage companies that hold the titles on many of these properties, County Counsel Kathleen Bales-Lange said, "and my understanding is they really don't like their collateral put under risk in that way."
Since January, the Sheriff's Department has investigated 71 marijuana grow sites – including seven groves in the Sierra foothills – and confiscated more than 154,000 plants.
Sigley said operators of 64 of those sites claimed they were legitimately and legally growing medical marijuana, but "every one of them was illegal."
In fact, Sigley said, he has yet to come across a grow site that didn't appear to be a criminal operation or violate the county's medical marijuana ordinance.
That ordinance has an extensive list of requirements, including that a grow site – big or small – has to be in an enclosed area with a roof and that it has to be in commercially zoned areas, not areas zoned for agricultural and residential use.
Not that there aren't people who are trying to grow marijuana just for their own, legitimate medical needs or for people they know with real medical problems, Sigley said.
"Those who are trying to comply with the law, we aren't getting phone calls on, because they aren't growing 100 plants in their yards," he said.
Many of the grow sites that have become a common sight in some parts of Tulare County and other parts of the state are large operations, some an acre or more – usually surrounded by makeshift plywood fences and other materials.
And some county residents say they believe the number is actually rising, despite the Sheriff's Department's claim of declining numbers.
The amount grown at some of these sites far exceeds the amount of marijuana the patients they claim to serve could smoke or ingest on their own, fueling the belief these so-called "medical" marijuana gardens actually are illegal operations.
"A lot of the marijuana is going out of state, where it sells for more per pound," Sigley said. "This year, we've seized almost 2,000 pounds that was processed and packaged for sale."
The problem, as county officials see it, has gotten so bad that they hired a code enforcement officer just to inspect marijuana grow sites to determine if they are violating the medical marijuana ordinance.
This year, deputies have accompanied the code enforcement officer to 150 sites, "and 84 of them are still outstanding as far as abating their marijuana [growing]," Sigley said.
In the past, the County Counsel's Office has sent abatement letters to grow-site operators, and in some cases the county took them to court seeking judicial orders to stop.
This year, the county is taking some grow-site operators and – when the sites are on leased land – their landlords to administrative code hearings where fines can be imposed for each day after it's noticed that the marijuana-growing continues.
Bales-Lange said those fines can be levied against both the landlords and tenants and can range from $100 to $500 a day – the latter for repeat offenders – along with having to pay the county's administrative costs.
Eight hearings are currently scheduled, she said, adding that these aren't court hearings, as they are run by a code enforcement officer from another county.
The County Counsel's Office has filed two court cases this year seeking injunctions against marijuana grow operators, and in both the defendants stopped before the cases went to trial.
"We're going to be filing more of them because harvest is coming up. Maybe 10 of them," Bales-Lange said.
"We've had one [court] action filed by someone against us seeking to restrain us enforcing our own ordinance, but that was dismissed."
News Hawk- TruthSeekr420 420 MAGAZINE
Source: visaliatimesdelta.com
Author: David Castellon
Contact: About us | Visalia Times-Delta and Tulare Advance-Register | visaliatimesdelta.com
Website: Tulare County officials: Marijuana enforcement changes paying off | Visalia Times-Delta and Tulare Advance-Register | visaliatimesdelta.com
They include fines for each day a grow site operated in violation of the county's medical marijuana ordinance, threatening property owners who leased their land with the same fines and other costs as the growers, and the threat of the federal government seizing the properties.
As far as Tulare County Sheriff's Lt. Tom Sigley is concerned, those efforts are paying off, because at this time last year, the department knew of 605 medical gardens in the unincorporated areas of the county.
Currently, his investigators know of 304, mostly in rural areas, he said.
In fact, Sigley said some of the growers started pulling their marijuana plants out of the ground right away after the Tulare County Board of Supervisors approved the new strategy in May.
And this year, the Sheriff's Department began sending warning letters to people with grow sites. About 65 percent to 70 percent of the people quit growing marijuana after receiving the letters.
"We didn't send letters last year," he said, explaining that the letters his department sends explain that marijuana growers are violating federal law and continued violations could result in the federal government seizing their properties.
"We are basically working a joint operation this year with the feds called 'Operation Mercury,' " Sigley said.
The program, which includes five other Valley counties, involves deputies here investigating properties where medical marijuana is grown and looking for factors that could be used by federal prosecutors to take the land from the owner, Sigley explained.
And it's not just in cases in which the growers and property owner are charged with criminal violations, said Lauren Harwood, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Federal prosecutors can file separate, civil forfeiture motions by showing marijuana growing has occurred at a location – which remains a federal crime despite California's Compassionate Use Act – or marijuana was sold or transported there even if the evidence isn't sufficient to go forward with criminal prosecutions, she explained.
So far, such actions have been focused on large growers and distributors suspected of using the guise of being medical marijuana growers to attempt to hide illegal activities.
For example, in July the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California announced plans to seize the leased building housing Oakland's Harborside Health Center, the largest medical marijuana dispensary in the state.
The U.S. Attorney is seeking the land because marijuana is being distributed on the premises, in violation of federal law. But the operators of Harborside have said the federal effort is unjustified, because they follow California's medical marijuana law.
No attempts have been made this year by federal prosecutors to seize medical marijuana garden sites in Tulare County.
Still, the threat of property seizures seems to be having an effect, said Sigley, noting that he believes part of the reason is that warning letters aren't just being sent to the people operating the grow sites here, but also to landowners who lease the land.
"And a lot of them are absentee owners, and they don't know what's going on," until they receive letters from the Sheriff's Department or the County Counsel's Office, he said. "A lot of them are filing eviction notices."
Letters also are being sent to mortgage companies that hold the titles on many of these properties, County Counsel Kathleen Bales-Lange said, "and my understanding is they really don't like their collateral put under risk in that way."
Since January, the Sheriff's Department has investigated 71 marijuana grow sites – including seven groves in the Sierra foothills – and confiscated more than 154,000 plants.
Sigley said operators of 64 of those sites claimed they were legitimately and legally growing medical marijuana, but "every one of them was illegal."
In fact, Sigley said, he has yet to come across a grow site that didn't appear to be a criminal operation or violate the county's medical marijuana ordinance.
That ordinance has an extensive list of requirements, including that a grow site – big or small – has to be in an enclosed area with a roof and that it has to be in commercially zoned areas, not areas zoned for agricultural and residential use.
Not that there aren't people who are trying to grow marijuana just for their own, legitimate medical needs or for people they know with real medical problems, Sigley said.
"Those who are trying to comply with the law, we aren't getting phone calls on, because they aren't growing 100 plants in their yards," he said.
Many of the grow sites that have become a common sight in some parts of Tulare County and other parts of the state are large operations, some an acre or more – usually surrounded by makeshift plywood fences and other materials.
And some county residents say they believe the number is actually rising, despite the Sheriff's Department's claim of declining numbers.
The amount grown at some of these sites far exceeds the amount of marijuana the patients they claim to serve could smoke or ingest on their own, fueling the belief these so-called "medical" marijuana gardens actually are illegal operations.
"A lot of the marijuana is going out of state, where it sells for more per pound," Sigley said. "This year, we've seized almost 2,000 pounds that was processed and packaged for sale."
The problem, as county officials see it, has gotten so bad that they hired a code enforcement officer just to inspect marijuana grow sites to determine if they are violating the medical marijuana ordinance.
This year, deputies have accompanied the code enforcement officer to 150 sites, "and 84 of them are still outstanding as far as abating their marijuana [growing]," Sigley said.
In the past, the County Counsel's Office has sent abatement letters to grow-site operators, and in some cases the county took them to court seeking judicial orders to stop.
This year, the county is taking some grow-site operators and – when the sites are on leased land – their landlords to administrative code hearings where fines can be imposed for each day after it's noticed that the marijuana-growing continues.
Bales-Lange said those fines can be levied against both the landlords and tenants and can range from $100 to $500 a day – the latter for repeat offenders – along with having to pay the county's administrative costs.
Eight hearings are currently scheduled, she said, adding that these aren't court hearings, as they are run by a code enforcement officer from another county.
The County Counsel's Office has filed two court cases this year seeking injunctions against marijuana grow operators, and in both the defendants stopped before the cases went to trial.
"We're going to be filing more of them because harvest is coming up. Maybe 10 of them," Bales-Lange said.
"We've had one [court] action filed by someone against us seeking to restrain us enforcing our own ordinance, but that was dismissed."
News Hawk- TruthSeekr420 420 MAGAZINE
Source: visaliatimesdelta.com
Author: David Castellon
Contact: About us | Visalia Times-Delta and Tulare Advance-Register | visaliatimesdelta.com
Website: Tulare County officials: Marijuana enforcement changes paying off | Visalia Times-Delta and Tulare Advance-Register | visaliatimesdelta.com
