Hash
New Member
Calif. - In San Francisco, the legalized dope business is booming all over town.
Among the latest crop of "medical marijuana" dispensaries popping up:
-- The Happy Days Herbal Relief Center -- which is run by a former crack addict and ex-con.
-- The Holistic Center, which is set to have its grand opening this week on the ground floor of a city-backed welfare hotel that houses a number of recovering drug addicts.
-- And a new pot club planned for 1945 Ocean Ave. out in the working- class Ingleside -- just across the street from a competing dope dispensary.
It's the third pot club on the street -- all within four blocks of each other.
And many of the neighbors aren't happy.
"There are 44 McDonald's in all of Manhattan -- more than any location in the world -- and we have 37 marijuana dispensaries in San Francisco,'' fumes Dogpatch Neighborhood Association President Susan Eslick, who just learned of plans for a new dope dealership down the street from her, at the corner of Third and 20th streets.
"If these are for health,'' Eslick added, "then we must have a huge epidemic.''
From what we're told, much of the surge can be traced to Oakland's decision to put a moratorium on clubs.
"They're all here because Jerry Brown threw them out of Oakland,'' police Capt. Tim Hettrich says bluntly.
Indeed, when the Oakland City Council capped the number of clubs last year at four -- putting most of the city's dozen or so unregulated pot joints out of business -- the activity surged on the west side of the bay. Not only has there been a doubling of new clubs in the past 18 months, police say, but the number of "patients'' requesting medical marijuana ID cards has nearly tripled, to 7,000.
The San Francisco boom has its roots in state voters' 1996 passage of Proposition 215, legalizing marijuana use for medical reasons.
With that, a whole new cottage industry was born, even though weed, medicinal or otherwise, is still illegal under federal law. Today there are 126 clubs and support groups throughout the state, serving an estimated 100, 000 medical marijuana users.
And with no legal source for marijuana, some clubs are charging the street rate, which is anywhere from $300 to $500 an ounce.
It's become an entrepreneur's dream.
One such dreamer is 40-year-old Jeff Hunter, a former crack addict who spent seven years in San Quentin State Prison for cocaine trafficking. He got out in 1999, and now operates the Happy Days Herbal Relief Center.
Hunter -- who is still on probation -- said the new marijuana enterprise "has turned my life around.''
"I was having a midlife crisis and was looking for other ways to make money legally,'' Hunter said.
"I make a pretty good income, I'd have to say,'' Hunter said, though he declined to specify just how much. Whatever the amount, it's probably more than he made in his last job, driving a bread truck.
On the afternoon we visited Happy Days at 607 Divisadero St., business was brisk -- with a stream of young and streetwise-looking customers showing up to buy or sample the goods.
On the wall hung a large menu, featuring "G. Purple'' for $20 a gram and hash for $35 a gram -- along with an assortment of medicine-laced goodies, including giant brownies and chocolate chip cookies.
While it might look like a party scene, Hunter insists that "100 percent'' of his clients are legitimate medical marijuana users.
We should also point out that Hunter has some friends in high places.
He's currently part of a discrimination suit against his former bread- driving boss, Sara Lee Corp., and is being represented by none other than San Francisco Police Commissioner Joe Veronese and Veronese's mom, ex-Supervisor Angela Alioto.
And while Hunter insists he's been welcomed into his new neighborhood, not all owners are getting the same reception.
Officials are already taking a close look at the new Holistic Center going into the Mission District's All-Star Hotel, mostly out of concern for those neighbors upstairs who are trying to break their addictions. The hotel is among a dozen that serve welfare tenants under Mayor Gavin Newsom's Care Not Cash program.
Meanwhile, folks out in the Ingleside have circulated a letter, addressed to Supervisors Sean Elsbernd and Gerardo Sandoval, protesting the proposed opening of the latest club in their district.
The problem for neighbors is that the Ocean Avenue clubs are all within a mile of eight schools -- including City College, two high schools and a middle school.
Police confirm the clubs are a real magnet for kids -- especially with all the bus service along Ocean Avenue.
According to Hettrich, it's not uncommon for one kid with a card to purchase an ounce or so of weed -- then turn around and sell enough of it to his friends to support his own habit.
After all, says Hettrich: "This is the city that knows how.''
Birds of a feather: Biologist Mark Rauzon argues that those $550,000 perches for double crested cormorants on the new Bay Bridge eastern span represent taxpayer money well spent.
Rauzon, who designed the "corm condos,'' tells us that without the replacement perches that we told you about last Sunday, the old Bay Bridge cormorants might choose to relocate to the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, where a cormorant colony is already perched.
"And more birds would mean less time for maintenance there,'' Rauzon said.
Or the birds might opt to move to the San Mateo Bridge and cause headaches there.
But no matter what we might think, the fact is the birds are covered by the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act -- which requires nesting birds get new perches.
"Of course,'' Rauzon noted of the structure at one time considered one of the seven wonders of the modern architectural world, "if the portion of the old bridge ... that holds the colony were allowed to stand, this would not be necessary."
It's a thought.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Copyright: 2005 Hearst Communications Inc.
Contact: letters@sfchronicle.com
Website: Home
Among the latest crop of "medical marijuana" dispensaries popping up:
-- The Happy Days Herbal Relief Center -- which is run by a former crack addict and ex-con.
-- The Holistic Center, which is set to have its grand opening this week on the ground floor of a city-backed welfare hotel that houses a number of recovering drug addicts.
-- And a new pot club planned for 1945 Ocean Ave. out in the working- class Ingleside -- just across the street from a competing dope dispensary.
It's the third pot club on the street -- all within four blocks of each other.
And many of the neighbors aren't happy.
"There are 44 McDonald's in all of Manhattan -- more than any location in the world -- and we have 37 marijuana dispensaries in San Francisco,'' fumes Dogpatch Neighborhood Association President Susan Eslick, who just learned of plans for a new dope dealership down the street from her, at the corner of Third and 20th streets.
"If these are for health,'' Eslick added, "then we must have a huge epidemic.''
From what we're told, much of the surge can be traced to Oakland's decision to put a moratorium on clubs.
"They're all here because Jerry Brown threw them out of Oakland,'' police Capt. Tim Hettrich says bluntly.
Indeed, when the Oakland City Council capped the number of clubs last year at four -- putting most of the city's dozen or so unregulated pot joints out of business -- the activity surged on the west side of the bay. Not only has there been a doubling of new clubs in the past 18 months, police say, but the number of "patients'' requesting medical marijuana ID cards has nearly tripled, to 7,000.
The San Francisco boom has its roots in state voters' 1996 passage of Proposition 215, legalizing marijuana use for medical reasons.
With that, a whole new cottage industry was born, even though weed, medicinal or otherwise, is still illegal under federal law. Today there are 126 clubs and support groups throughout the state, serving an estimated 100, 000 medical marijuana users.
And with no legal source for marijuana, some clubs are charging the street rate, which is anywhere from $300 to $500 an ounce.
It's become an entrepreneur's dream.
One such dreamer is 40-year-old Jeff Hunter, a former crack addict who spent seven years in San Quentin State Prison for cocaine trafficking. He got out in 1999, and now operates the Happy Days Herbal Relief Center.
Hunter -- who is still on probation -- said the new marijuana enterprise "has turned my life around.''
"I was having a midlife crisis and was looking for other ways to make money legally,'' Hunter said.
"I make a pretty good income, I'd have to say,'' Hunter said, though he declined to specify just how much. Whatever the amount, it's probably more than he made in his last job, driving a bread truck.
On the afternoon we visited Happy Days at 607 Divisadero St., business was brisk -- with a stream of young and streetwise-looking customers showing up to buy or sample the goods.
On the wall hung a large menu, featuring "G. Purple'' for $20 a gram and hash for $35 a gram -- along with an assortment of medicine-laced goodies, including giant brownies and chocolate chip cookies.
While it might look like a party scene, Hunter insists that "100 percent'' of his clients are legitimate medical marijuana users.
We should also point out that Hunter has some friends in high places.
He's currently part of a discrimination suit against his former bread- driving boss, Sara Lee Corp., and is being represented by none other than San Francisco Police Commissioner Joe Veronese and Veronese's mom, ex-Supervisor Angela Alioto.
And while Hunter insists he's been welcomed into his new neighborhood, not all owners are getting the same reception.
Officials are already taking a close look at the new Holistic Center going into the Mission District's All-Star Hotel, mostly out of concern for those neighbors upstairs who are trying to break their addictions. The hotel is among a dozen that serve welfare tenants under Mayor Gavin Newsom's Care Not Cash program.
Meanwhile, folks out in the Ingleside have circulated a letter, addressed to Supervisors Sean Elsbernd and Gerardo Sandoval, protesting the proposed opening of the latest club in their district.
The problem for neighbors is that the Ocean Avenue clubs are all within a mile of eight schools -- including City College, two high schools and a middle school.
Police confirm the clubs are a real magnet for kids -- especially with all the bus service along Ocean Avenue.
According to Hettrich, it's not uncommon for one kid with a card to purchase an ounce or so of weed -- then turn around and sell enough of it to his friends to support his own habit.
After all, says Hettrich: "This is the city that knows how.''
Birds of a feather: Biologist Mark Rauzon argues that those $550,000 perches for double crested cormorants on the new Bay Bridge eastern span represent taxpayer money well spent.
Rauzon, who designed the "corm condos,'' tells us that without the replacement perches that we told you about last Sunday, the old Bay Bridge cormorants might choose to relocate to the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, where a cormorant colony is already perched.
"And more birds would mean less time for maintenance there,'' Rauzon said.
Or the birds might opt to move to the San Mateo Bridge and cause headaches there.
But no matter what we might think, the fact is the birds are covered by the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act -- which requires nesting birds get new perches.
"Of course,'' Rauzon noted of the structure at one time considered one of the seven wonders of the modern architectural world, "if the portion of the old bridge ... that holds the colony were allowed to stand, this would not be necessary."
It's a thought.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Copyright: 2005 Hearst Communications Inc.
Contact: letters@sfchronicle.com
Website: Home
