Jacob Bell
New Member
A man ordered by Tulare County officials to stop allowing medical marijuana to be grown on land he leases north of Visalia is fighting back by asking a judge to order the county to cease its efforts to stop him.
And Tulare County Superior Court Judge Paul Vortmann could decide this morning whether to issue a temporary restraining order to prevent county agencies from continuing their efforts to have about 3,500 medical-marijuana plants cleared from the site near Highway 63 and the St. Johns River.
The plants are being grown by people with doctors' recommendations to use the drug to treat medical conditions.
Richard Daleman, who last year started a business subleasing portions of the 5 acres of farmland he leases to fellow medical-marijuana users, filed the application for the temporary restraining order Wednesday afternoon.
Daleman said he has 40 clients assigned to small parcels to grow and care for their own medical-marijuana plants.
One of them is Johnny Snow, a Visalia resident who has 87 plants growing on the site, a few less than the 90 on his doctor's recommendation. A copy of the recommendation is posted on a stick in front of his plants, as it is on the plots of the other clients.
"It's a bully tactic," Snow said of the county's efforts to enforce its medical-marijuana ordinance that he and Daleman say violates state medical-marijuana laws.
"If he loses, I'm not ready to pull my plants," said Snow, who suffers from hemochromatosis, a metabolic disorder that -" among other things – makes it difficult to eat.
Snow said he smokes about 5 pounds of marijuana a year to make him hungry so he'll eat, and it also relieves his back pain.
It will take at least a couple more weeks of growing until the buds on his most mature plants will have grown enough to use for treatment and longer until all his plants are ready, he said.
If he pulls the plants now or if the county brings in people to clear the site after its cease-and-desist deadline passes Saturday, Snow said all the work and money he has invested in growing the plants will be wasted and he would be left with nothing to help him treat his symptoms.
And, he added, he can't afford the $20,000 he estimates that it would cost him to buy the medical marijuana he needs at a cooperative. Snow said a lot is riding on the outcome of today's hearing for him and the others who plant there.
"We're all waiting to see what happens. And we're hoping like hell we don't have to pull them," he said of the plants.
Last week, Daleman and his landlord were among property owners and renters at five locales in the unincorporated county given cease-and-desist requests to stop growing because they were violating the medical-marijuana ordinance that the county Board of Supervisors passed in 2009.
Among its provisions, medical marijuana can be grown only in commercially zoned areas and the grow sites have to be in enclosed buildings with roofs.
Daleman's site is zoned for agriculture.
The letter Daleman received Aug. 31 only cites the zoning problems, not that the plants are grown outdoors. He has erected a chain-link fence around the site with slats inserted so the plants aren't visible from the road.
His lawyer, John Ryan, said he barely had time to put together the application for a restraining order against the county, file it with the court Wednesday and get a hearing set for this morning, a day before the county's deadline.
"Plaintiff currently operates a lawful business assisting patients with valid medical marijuana [recommendations] to grow their own marijuana in a secure setting," the motion states. "The zoning ordinance imposes onerous and unjustified burdens on the legal cultivation of medical marijuana ... by requiring that marijuana cultivation occur entirely indoors in specially designed structures.
"The zoning ordinance is void, as it is the product of an irrational animus against any form of legalized marijuana and against those who grow it and use it as a group," it continues.
Ryan added that these "crazy burdens" drive up the costs for people with a legitimate need for the drug.
Both Ryan and Daleman claim that the county's requirements violate California's Compassionate Use Act, which voters in the state passed in 1996 to allow the legal use of marijuana for medical treatment.
In the motion, Daleman is seeking the temporary restraining order so he can continue allowing his clients to grow and harvest marijuana while the court determines if the county's ordinance is valid.
This isn't the first challenge to that ordinance.
Foothill Growers Association Inc., a cooperative of about 100 people with doctors' recommendations to use medical marijuana, challenged the county's attempt last year to obtain a civil injunction to force the group to stop growing and distributing the plants near Ivanhoe.
Vortmann was the judge in that case and ruled that Foothill Growers violated the county ordinance. He ordered the cooperative to shut its operation, and Foothill Growers complied.
Daleman said renting the land for growing is his sole income.
And he's no stranger to butting heads with the county over medical marijuana. In March 2009, he was acquitted of drug charges after being arrested for growing marijuana at the home where he lived near Exeter.
Daleman's defense was that he was growing medical marijuana. After winning the criminal case, he successfully sued and got a court order requiring the county Sheriff's Department to return to him 12 pounds of marijuana confiscated by investigators.
In his legal filing, Daleman accuses the county of going after him in retaliation for his past wins in court.
"We are somewhat puzzled by the allegations regarding continual harassment" as Daleman's land is one of many marijuana grow sites inspected, and he's not the only one to get a cease-and-desist request, said Tulare County Counsel Kathleen Bales-Lange.
She said she wouldn't discuss how her office will challenge Daleman's claim in court today.
As for Daleman's claim that enforcing the ordinance would leave patients without their needed medical marijuana, Bales-Lange noted that even if Vortmann rules in the county's favor today, county officials wouldn't swarm in and remove plants in the next few days.
If Daleman and his clients don't cease operations by Saturday, Bales-Lange said, "we would ask the judge to find that the activity on the property is a nuisance and ask that it be abated."
The court would give Daleman and the property owner time to cease its activities and clear the plants if such an order were to be issued, and the legal process to get to that point might take three or four months at the minimum, she added.
If the county does seek an abatement order, the owner of the land Daleman leases could be billed for the legal fees, along with the costs for abatement, if the county does the work, Bales-Lange said.
Whether any of this happens will depend on Vortmann's decision.
Daleman said he believes that he's in the right, so much so that he informed the Board of Supervisors, the Sheriff's Department and the county District Attorney's Office what he was doing long before he received last week's notice.
"I've been aboveboard. I'm not in the closet," he said. "I've done everything legal."
But not everyone on his side is so confident.
Snow said some of his fellow growers at Daleman's parcel have pulled their plants - about 100 in all.
News Hawk- Jacob Ebel 420 MAGAZINE
Source: visaliatimesdelta.com
Author: David Castellon
Contact: Contact Us
Copyright: visaliatimesdelta.com
Website: Tulare County's medical-pot ordinance challenged
And Tulare County Superior Court Judge Paul Vortmann could decide this morning whether to issue a temporary restraining order to prevent county agencies from continuing their efforts to have about 3,500 medical-marijuana plants cleared from the site near Highway 63 and the St. Johns River.
The plants are being grown by people with doctors' recommendations to use the drug to treat medical conditions.
Richard Daleman, who last year started a business subleasing portions of the 5 acres of farmland he leases to fellow medical-marijuana users, filed the application for the temporary restraining order Wednesday afternoon.
Daleman said he has 40 clients assigned to small parcels to grow and care for their own medical-marijuana plants.
One of them is Johnny Snow, a Visalia resident who has 87 plants growing on the site, a few less than the 90 on his doctor's recommendation. A copy of the recommendation is posted on a stick in front of his plants, as it is on the plots of the other clients.
"It's a bully tactic," Snow said of the county's efforts to enforce its medical-marijuana ordinance that he and Daleman say violates state medical-marijuana laws.
"If he loses, I'm not ready to pull my plants," said Snow, who suffers from hemochromatosis, a metabolic disorder that -" among other things – makes it difficult to eat.
Snow said he smokes about 5 pounds of marijuana a year to make him hungry so he'll eat, and it also relieves his back pain.
It will take at least a couple more weeks of growing until the buds on his most mature plants will have grown enough to use for treatment and longer until all his plants are ready, he said.
If he pulls the plants now or if the county brings in people to clear the site after its cease-and-desist deadline passes Saturday, Snow said all the work and money he has invested in growing the plants will be wasted and he would be left with nothing to help him treat his symptoms.
And, he added, he can't afford the $20,000 he estimates that it would cost him to buy the medical marijuana he needs at a cooperative. Snow said a lot is riding on the outcome of today's hearing for him and the others who plant there.
"We're all waiting to see what happens. And we're hoping like hell we don't have to pull them," he said of the plants.
Last week, Daleman and his landlord were among property owners and renters at five locales in the unincorporated county given cease-and-desist requests to stop growing because they were violating the medical-marijuana ordinance that the county Board of Supervisors passed in 2009.
Among its provisions, medical marijuana can be grown only in commercially zoned areas and the grow sites have to be in enclosed buildings with roofs.
Daleman's site is zoned for agriculture.
The letter Daleman received Aug. 31 only cites the zoning problems, not that the plants are grown outdoors. He has erected a chain-link fence around the site with slats inserted so the plants aren't visible from the road.
His lawyer, John Ryan, said he barely had time to put together the application for a restraining order against the county, file it with the court Wednesday and get a hearing set for this morning, a day before the county's deadline.
"Plaintiff currently operates a lawful business assisting patients with valid medical marijuana [recommendations] to grow their own marijuana in a secure setting," the motion states. "The zoning ordinance imposes onerous and unjustified burdens on the legal cultivation of medical marijuana ... by requiring that marijuana cultivation occur entirely indoors in specially designed structures.
"The zoning ordinance is void, as it is the product of an irrational animus against any form of legalized marijuana and against those who grow it and use it as a group," it continues.
Ryan added that these "crazy burdens" drive up the costs for people with a legitimate need for the drug.
Both Ryan and Daleman claim that the county's requirements violate California's Compassionate Use Act, which voters in the state passed in 1996 to allow the legal use of marijuana for medical treatment.
In the motion, Daleman is seeking the temporary restraining order so he can continue allowing his clients to grow and harvest marijuana while the court determines if the county's ordinance is valid.
This isn't the first challenge to that ordinance.
Foothill Growers Association Inc., a cooperative of about 100 people with doctors' recommendations to use medical marijuana, challenged the county's attempt last year to obtain a civil injunction to force the group to stop growing and distributing the plants near Ivanhoe.
Vortmann was the judge in that case and ruled that Foothill Growers violated the county ordinance. He ordered the cooperative to shut its operation, and Foothill Growers complied.
Daleman said renting the land for growing is his sole income.
And he's no stranger to butting heads with the county over medical marijuana. In March 2009, he was acquitted of drug charges after being arrested for growing marijuana at the home where he lived near Exeter.
Daleman's defense was that he was growing medical marijuana. After winning the criminal case, he successfully sued and got a court order requiring the county Sheriff's Department to return to him 12 pounds of marijuana confiscated by investigators.
In his legal filing, Daleman accuses the county of going after him in retaliation for his past wins in court.
"We are somewhat puzzled by the allegations regarding continual harassment" as Daleman's land is one of many marijuana grow sites inspected, and he's not the only one to get a cease-and-desist request, said Tulare County Counsel Kathleen Bales-Lange.
She said she wouldn't discuss how her office will challenge Daleman's claim in court today.
As for Daleman's claim that enforcing the ordinance would leave patients without their needed medical marijuana, Bales-Lange noted that even if Vortmann rules in the county's favor today, county officials wouldn't swarm in and remove plants in the next few days.
If Daleman and his clients don't cease operations by Saturday, Bales-Lange said, "we would ask the judge to find that the activity on the property is a nuisance and ask that it be abated."
The court would give Daleman and the property owner time to cease its activities and clear the plants if such an order were to be issued, and the legal process to get to that point might take three or four months at the minimum, she added.
If the county does seek an abatement order, the owner of the land Daleman leases could be billed for the legal fees, along with the costs for abatement, if the county does the work, Bales-Lange said.
Whether any of this happens will depend on Vortmann's decision.
Daleman said he believes that he's in the right, so much so that he informed the Board of Supervisors, the Sheriff's Department and the county District Attorney's Office what he was doing long before he received last week's notice.
"I've been aboveboard. I'm not in the closet," he said. "I've done everything legal."
But not everyone on his side is so confident.
Snow said some of his fellow growers at Daleman's parcel have pulled their plants - about 100 in all.
News Hawk- Jacob Ebel 420 MAGAZINE
Source: visaliatimesdelta.com
Author: David Castellon
Contact: Contact Us
Copyright: visaliatimesdelta.com
Website: Tulare County's medical-pot ordinance challenged
