NEWS: FRENCH VALLEY - Commercial park was hub for marijuana

According to growers, 18 separate pot growing operations were crammed into 3 small, nondescript buildings. Arrests were made though no charges have been filed

Over the past year, an out-of-the-way commercial park on the outskirts of Murrieta became a hub of do-it-yourself medical marijuana growers.

According to the growers, 18 separate operations were crammed into suites in three small, nondescript buildings in French Valley. They grew plants under bright lights and sold the marijuana elsewhere to small numbers of patients. They worked quietly for at least a year, until federal drug agents and sheriff’s deputies shutting down a well-known dispensary stumbled onto their secret gardens.

Three growers were arrested but no charges have been filed. Riverside County district attorney’s spokesman John Hall said his office is not reviewing the case for possible charges. The U.S. attorney’s office said no federal arrests are expected.

The growers said they thought their operations were legal. California law allows members of collectives to buy and sell medical marijuana from each other as long as they are not-for-profit. The growers said they ran such nonprofit collectives.

The incident shows how difficult it still can be to navigate the conflicting state and federal laws governing medical marijuana more than 15 years after California voters made it legal. Marijuana is still considered an illegal narcotic under federal law.

Craig Cawley, 53, of Winchester, was among three people arrested during the raids. He has not been charged with a crime.

Cawley said he talked to officials from the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department and district attorney’s office, whose names he did not know, who told him his setup was OK. He kept his harvest small — many growers believe they won’t be busted for fewer than 100 plants — and felt everything was legal.

“I believed that to the moment I was handcuffed,” Cawley said.

FOR RENT

The tenants said the property was empty until their Orange County-based landlord hit on a new strategy: market it to marijuana growers.

An ad for the property on Craigslist didn’t mention marijuana but encouraged prospective tenants to “GROW GROW GROW”, according to marijuana growers who responded to it.

The ad no longer appears on the website.

Jonathan Cringan, 26, who also was arrested, said the landlord, David Cox, faced two options.

“Either lose the property or … rent it to weed growers,” Cringan said. “‘Cause that’s the only business in California where anybody’s making any money.”

Cox, reached by phone, declined to comment. It is unknown if he will face criminal charges.

For at least a year, the growers said, tenants paid twice the going rate, in cash, for the opportunity to harvest marijuana in the secluded park.

Cawley said he paid $3,000 a month for two adjoining suites. Offices in neighboring buildings rented for about $.60 per square foot, while space in Cox’s buildings cost $1.20, Cawley said.

The deal was worth it because landlords willing to accept small-scale marijuana farms in their buildings were rare, the growers said. And after the U.S. Attorney’s Office last year announced it was going after building owners who rented to dispensaries, even fewer were willing to allow any kind of marijuana activity, they said.

Cox had no shortage of prospective tenants, Cawley said.

“There was a line of people right behind me.”

WELL-KNOWN GROWERS

The property is on Innovation Court, just north of Murrieta off Winchester Road, among a sea of similar-looking rectangular structures. In nearby buildings, tenants include construction and air conditioning contractors, party rental and cleaning businesses.

Craig King, owner of Kitchen Places, said it was well known the buildings next door housed a collection of small marijuana farms.

“When the wind was blowing in the right direction, you could smell it,” he said.

The marijuana operations were housed in three adjacent buildings but run independently, Cringan said. He said the growers mainly kept to themselves, and while he felt he was operating legally, he worried the other operators would one day bring legal problems to his doorstep.

“Nobody’s involved in this industry without knowing that possibility exists,” he said.

DISPENSARIES TARGETED

In October, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Sacramento announced a statewide crackdown on medical marijuana dispensaries. Storefronts that sold marijuana had to shut down, the office said, or their operators and their landlords would face penalties.

Most of the operations at the French Valley commercial park were run by small-scale growers who kept a few dozen plants and sold the marijuana off-site to members of small collectives. But the property did house two storefront dispensaries, which sold to thousands of patients on-site.

One of the dispensaries closed soon after the warning, the growers said. The other, Disabled American Veterans Collective, did not.

So in January, Drug Enforcement Authority agents and Riverside County sheriff’s deputies served a search warrant and shut down Disabled American Veterans Collective, which has no relation to the nonprofit veterans services organization.

The dispensary’s owners, Kevin O. Freeman, 38, and Shelly Lee Walker, 28, of Murrieta, were arrested. They have not been charged with any crimes.

While searching the dispensary, officers heard the telltale sounds of large industrial fans and drug-sniffing dogs detected marijuana in adjoining suites, according to a federal search warrant. The discoveries led them to the enclave of growers.

Cringan and Cawley said they would have left the park if authorities had warned them, as they had the dispensary owners.

“I’m not trying to stick a middle finger up to the Justice Department,” Cringan said. “I’ve got respect.”

Cringan, Cawley and Scott Aaron Fielder were arrested on suspicion of cultivation and possession, sale and transportation of marijuana. They were each held for 72 hours and then released without charges being filed.

DEA agents took part in the raids but Department of Justice spokesman Thom Mrozek said no federal arrests were coming.

While some growers talk about improving access to sick people and standing up for patients’ rights, Cringan just wanted a job, he said. At the end of the day, that’s why people shell out thousands for rent and utility bills and risk prison, he said.

“The reality is, nobody would do this if we weren’t making money,” Cringan said. “Nobody’s going to risk going to federal prison unless there was some money in it.”

After graduating from Chaparral High School in Temecula and San Diego State University, Cringan said he was kicked out of George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C., after an argument with a professor over a failing grade on a paper about medical marijuana laws.

Cawley said he was trying to raise money to start a charity that would send kids to summer camp.

Both men spent three days in jail, spent thousands of dollars on rent, electricity and the supplies that went into confiscated plants, and could wait up to three years before learning if they will be charged with any crimes.

“I’m at a crossroads in my life,” said Cringan, who is now living at home with his father in Menifee. “There aren’t many good choices available.”

Source: The Press-Enterprise

NEWS: Teamsters represent Calif. medical marijuana growers

OAKLAND, California — As organized labor faces declining membership, one of the United States' most storied unions is looking to a new growth industry: marijuana.

The Teamsters added nearly 40 new members earlier this month by organizing the country's first group of unionized marijuana growers. Such an arrangement is likely only possible in California, which has the loosest U.S. medical marijuana laws.

But it's still unclear how the Teamsters will safeguard the rights of members who do work that's considered a federal crime.

"I didn't have this planned out when I became a Teamster 34 years ago, to organize marijuana workers," said Lou Marchetti, who acted as a liaison between the growers and Oakland-based Teamsters Local 70. "This is a whole new ballgame."

The new members work as gardeners, trimmers and cloners for Marjyn Investments LLC, an Oakland business that contracts with medical marijuana patients to grow their pot for them.

Their newly negotiated two-year contract provides them with a pension, paid vacation and health insurance. Their current wages of $18 per hour will increase to $25.75 an hour within 15 months, according to the union.

Historically, the Teamsters are no strangers to entanglements with federal law enforcement, from the infiltration of the union by organized crime to the disappearance of union leader Jimmy Hoffa. If the federal government decided to crack down on Marjyn, Marchetti said the union was still figuring out how it might intervene.

Growing marijuana outdoors is not hard — the nickname "weed" is well-earned. Indoor growing operations require more know-how and more work. But the most labor-intensive part of the process comes at harvest time, when growers rely on small armies of trimmers to clip the plant's resin-rich buds.

The work can be difficult and the hours long — and trimmers cannot count on federal labor regulations to protect them while doing work banned under federal law.

Michael Leong, assistant regional director for the Oakland office of the National Labor Relations Board, said he did not know of any case in which the federal government had been asked to mediate a dispute involving a business that was blatantly illegal under federal law.

He also said it wasn't clear if the new Teamsters would count as farmworkers, which would put them outside the NLRB's domain.

Michael Lee, general counsel for the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board, said the growers probably would qualify as agricultural workers. Any conflict between workers and the union would likely fall under his board's jurisdiction, but contract disputes between workers and management would have to be decided in state court.

Even within the state, marijuana cultivation has remained in the shadows as retail dispensaries have flourished because California's medical marijuana law provides no clear rules for growing the plant.

The Oakland City Council sought to change that dynamic in July by making the city the nation's first to authorize industrial pot cultivation. More than 260 potential applicants have expressed interest in competing later this year for four permits for large-scale growing operations, said Arturo Sanchez, an assistant to the Oakland city administrator who will ultimately issue the permits.

Union membership will not be a requirement for receiving a permit, but labor standards are one of many factors that will be considered. The union organizing effort and contract negotiations went smoothly at Marjyn, which hopes to win one of the permits.

"There was no strife between employees and management at all," said a Marjyn worker who would only identify himself as Rudy L. because he worried about his personal security if it became known that he grew marijuana for a living. He said he was not worried about getting arrested because he believed Marjyn was operating in compliance with state law, though the threat of a federal crackdown is never far from anyone's mind.

About 100 workers in Oakland's retail medical marijuana dispensaries joined the United Food and Commercial Workers in May. The Teamsters have never tried to organize dispensary workers, because retail has never been an industry in which they have been traditionally involved, Marchetti said.

The Teamsters have long vied with the United Farm Workers and other unions to represent agricultural workers. So far, no other unions have competed with the Teamsters for the membership of medical marijuana growers.

Marchetti said the union would not have gotten involved with the growers if it didn't believe the business was legitimate under state law.

"The Teamsters would never organize an illegal business," Marchetti said.

Source: MSNBC