Butte County

[theJointedOne]

Sunfire is really speaking truth here.

If i may suggest check out a good brothers website powerpolitics.com , a great Chico dude shares some very useful information there.

If I wasn't out of town this season I'd be there with you guys, a joint in one hand, a blacks law dictionary in the other!

Cheers

 

[Yes4Prop215]

thanks for the info sunfire, i will be contacting all those lawyers posted about this. i will also be joining the yuba coalition very soon as that will be my new home. i am moving the fuck out of this piece of shit county.

i really grilled the code enforcement guy about the anonymous complaint shit. he even laughed about how "they couldn't do anything about it" when i mentioned that what if people called in a dozen tips on all their neighbors for grows. i told him that i know every single neighbor on this street and that none of them would call because they know there is no grow here.

it was a trailer property that we use for the trim crews and other workers to stay at, its just a dirty ass trailer, no gate, they pulled up in the driveway right after we smoked a joint and knocked on the door. its just crazy that this happened and then they hit every single person on the street and few streets over, the same method ever time using the anonymous complaint. we know everybody out here, so when it happens word spreads fast. the cocksucker had a clipboard with a google map image of the trailer property outlined in yellow highlighter, with the name of the guy who owns the place so they had obviously researched it.

these fucktards literally went up to every gate on one street and claimed "we got an anonymous complaint theres a large marijuana grow here". they even visited a property of a friend who has nothing but an old empty greenhouse frame. they went to his gate and dropped the anonymous complaint BS, he didn't let them in but they could see visually that the greenhouse was empty and took some pictures. but my friend knows all his neighbors who all grow and NONE of them would call in complaints. they claim they are being "reactive no proactive" but that is total bullshit. today proved they are doing sweeps of neighborhoods trying to see what pops up.

there is something seriously fishy going on with how they are using the anonymous complaint as a blanket cause for fucking with people. anyways i am fucking furious about this, lots of people are, and I'm gonna take some time away from growing to attack this legally. i have a good friend who is an investigative journalist who i have put on the hunt, we will be contacting a bunch of lawyers and pretty much everybody who needs to be contacted. we will be pulling court records of previous cases and cross referencing the legality of the search warrants with lawyers. our goal is to expose their corruption and leak it to the local media and hopefully even get something posted to LA times or MSNBC. just the taxpayer waste alone is a news story.

THIS SHIT IS ILLEGAL AND NEEDS TO BE STOPPED. where psi haze at with his fucking dumbass who supports this shit. wonder if you will be singing the same tune when you have sheriff pounding on your door asking to snoop around in your house.

 

[Yes4Prop215]

forgot to add, they claimed they were gonna get a search warrant because they could "smell weed" (which i responded we had just smoked, we are all patients). the last news article states that CE is able to get an inspection warrant within 30 minutes instead of a day, they visited around 2pm and didn't come back. but still wondering whats gonna happen over the next week.

they also kept asking questions about the AC condenser and why it was running. and why there was a security camera above the door. had excuses for both but do you think these are probable cause?


also, my neighbor gave me the name of a lawyer out of redding who is familiar with grow ordinances and who helped some folks out in shasta, his name is Eric Berg if anyone has heard of him.

one last thing, there was a chopper flying this area on sunday pretty heavy, which echoes the previous poster about how the choppers are a precursor to the compliance checks.

Once again though the refferandum thing sucks because I'm pretty sure it's written that win or lose, for either side, once it's put to vote it can not be challenged again for 2 years.

but in the previous years in butte county, we voted for and passed measure B! and had voted for a previous grow ordinance the year prior, we were two strikes into voting for pro grow ordinances in butte county, this place was like heaven for the last few years. i could legally grow 72 plants on my property, now i can barely fit 2 or 3.

its weird how we passed all this shit and then all of a sudden measure A comes along and totally reverses it. and at the same time every county up and down norcal, cencal and socal is doing the same thing. why all of a sudden in 2015!! thats another subject i want the Investigative journalist on, are all these BOS and local county officials being pressured or swayed by an outside entity to push for grow bans??

 

[ApolloAK]

forgot to add, they claimed they were gonna get a search warrant because they could "smell weed" (which i responded we had just smoked, we are all patients). the last news article states that CE is able to get an inspection warrant within 30 minutes instead of a day, they visited around 2pm and didn't come back. but still wondering whats gonna happen over the next week.

they also kept asking questions about the AC condenser and why it was running. and why there was a security camera above the door. had excuses for both but do you think these are probable cause?


also, my neighbor gave me the name of a lawyer out of redding who is familiar with grow ordinances and who helped some folks out in shasta, his name is Eric Berg if anyone has heard of him.

one last thing, there was a chopper flying this area on sunday pretty heavy, which echoes the previous poster about how the choppers are a precursor to the compliance checks.



but in the previous years in butte county, we voted for and passed measure B! and had voted for a previous grow ordinance the year prior, we were two strikes into voting for pro grow ordinances in butte county, this place was like heaven for the last few years. i could legally grow 72 plants on my property, now i can barely fit 2 or 3.

its weird how we passed all this shit and then all of a sudden measure A comes along and totally reverses it. and at the same time every county up and down norcal, cencal and socal is doing the same thing. why all of a sudden in 2015!! thats another subject i want the Investigative journalist on, are all these BOS and local county officials being pressured or swayed by an outside entity to push for grow bans??

My county has no local ordinances, yet if you ask the police they will lie to you and tell you that outdoor growing in illegal in the county.

 

[Urbngroz]

That sucks about that visit. What time of day was it when they left your neighborhood? Did anyone let them come in? I don't think they are using real complaints just reports from the chopper and google maps. Flying the chopper on Sunday as well, probably a lot of overtime for somebody. Maybe they will mismanage funds and run out of money early in the season. It sounds like we either have to fight this or go back to guerilla growing/indoor and hiding in the shadows, throwing down a bunch of money on a property and everything else needed to do a proper OD grow seems like a very risky gamble these days, at least in Butte.

 

[Yes4Prop215]

It was around 2pm in afternoon. The older white guy with the mustache and two older deputies I think one was a volunteer. You can se pictures of them on BCSO facebook. They were driving marked ford explorers one BCSO green n white and the CE was plain white with a blue symbol on the door saying code enforcement.

It's weird they would even think there's a grow here just based on Google maps. There is a field out back but was never used for OD grows, no pots no irrigation no water tanks. Both our direct neighbors grow OD and had their holes and GH frames up and they didn't get visited.

But just a few blocks away they hit every property on this one street that had a lot of grows. Trying to learn more about those visits.
edit: so talked to some of the neighbors and CE claims they were complaints, however they all believe it was due to the flyover and the fact some of them still had their pots and infrastructure out. CE came and saw that most properties had no plants and left.

 

[Sunfire]

Of course there's a bigger picture! Corporations are gearing up for 2016. I have heard from 2 different people that the rice farmers already have stuff in there catalogue this year to start buying and gettingn ready to row crop.

Soper wheeler, the largest single entity land owner in california, which is a logging company, has been proven on record to be giving yuba county money to fight us. When questioned, they said they don't plan to grow herb in 2016. They said they hate hippies who are always giving them shit to cut down trees, and that they are tired of illegal grows on their lands.

Soper wheeler and the also wants property values to plummet so they can swoop on and buy it cheap. Just when the ban was a rumor everyone stopped buying property in yuba. Jan at pmz reality will tell you that, and so will al at yuba feather reality. At one of the earlier BOS meeting a realtor spoke on how she had 8 sales ready to go and they all backed out when they heard about the ban. In the Las 5 years the raw land value of my property has gone up over 50%! We were increasing land values while our opponents were claiming we were decreasing them with our "criminal activity".

They also want the water as the corporations will be paying taxes on all their herb in 2016. This is one part of the union I'd like to hammer out in preperation for AB266 when it gets pushed through. That is a new model of medical marijuana which is pretty much the model they will form the legalization after. It describes all the who where when how and whats with growing, processing, and selling. If we are transparent with the government, and have an accountant for the union that handles all the taxes and numbers of the members, the government would love us. But we need to hop on it soon if we don't cameras in our gardens and a 30% tax like in colorado.

It's also simple supply and demand. Already supply is dwindling and demand is going up. I recently did a lot of calling around and prices are way higher then they normally are at this time of year. If they squash all us little folk out, then they have less competition for 2016 and the demand will be much higher for when they break out their massive supply. Small time growers, especially with families, fuck the market up. THanksgiving is right after harvest, then Christmas and they get desperate and sell cheap. The corporations can nitrogen pack and store everything in a freezer and slowly release it the stabilize and maintain the market but they need the price tons tart higher before they get there and boy are they off to a good start already. Shit I got a friend here I gotta go. I'll be back.

 

[theJointedOne]

I used to have a grow on Soper wheeler land..haha..mother fuckers

Stay safe prop, but good on ya to give those guys shit. Bored pigs, they should put as much effort into righting real crime.

 

[Yes4Prop215]

I'm trying to think of sneaky ways to bait the trailer house so if they come serve an inspection warrant i can waste their time even more or possibly get them to break the law so i can sue them.

i have a bunch of empty suitcases with locks on them, tons of trash and magazines and stuff for them to go through, and a dirty ass litter box with a pregnant cat nursing in the closet haha…

what about an "expensive" glass piece that i can get them to accidentally break somehow? i have this old pipe that looks expensive but functionality wise sucks.

 

[furrywall11]

The easiest way would be to pay some guys to setup a quick PVC hoop house...fashion a bunch of cardboard cut outs of some 5' dank bushes..transplant them into 100 gallon smart pots...setup some cfls blasting all through the night.. :-0... then get a broken 60" sony 4k HD television from the E-cycle center and put it right next to the door so that when they arrive and open the door it gets knocked off a shelf and falls on a friend....cover him with fake blood and get him to the hospital complaining about phantom pain and neuropathy....

 

[hup234]

SPIKE STRIPS

 

[Backyard Farmer]

Put a hps light in one of the bedrooms and get some tomato plays and let the orange light pour out of the trailer

 

[theJointedOne]

Fill a bunch of ez cloners with a thousand Japanese maple cuts. Thell bust you, you sue. Ha!

 

[CanniDo Cowboy]

On the subject of lawyers - As ive said before, there are 2 general reasons for hiring one 1) Violation of rights
But...Vindication in our business can come at a high price and spending your hard earned dollars to prove a point that shouldnt have had to be proven in the first place can be a hollow victory...

2) Saving your ass - We tend to dig a lot deeper into the cash supply when our ass is on the line. The DUI charge is a great example. In our game, its primarily the 'cultivation with intent to sell' thing. Being caught 'dead to rights" isnt a death sentence but getting yourself off life support can be spendy...

Dont be so quick to do things with the belief that a lawyer will save your day. Because most things mj are "gray area' to begin with, it is one of the least predictable or quick to resolve legal predicaments out there. With the battle forefront now at your county doorstep in the form of ordinance violations, it would be wise to know you are now entering "deep pocket' territory. As the following article points out, a whole new breed of lawyers are clambering on board for the next green rush in their field in the form of now chasing an ambulance with a green cross painted on the side...And for the most part, advocate lawyers are still...lawyers. Although a better choice, their time is still your money and in all cases, your county is Big Ben...


With legalization, lawyers turn to business of pot

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Lawyers and pot dealers have long intersected in criminal court, but as marijuana goes mainstream, attorneys have been working to keep sellers and growers legit.

Marijuana divisions are popping up at law firms to advise pot shops on where they can locate, what their websites can say and how to vet new clients.
"It's definitely something that established firms are dipping a toe into, though they are being very cautious, and rightly so," said Sam Kamin, a professor at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law who teaches a class about representing the marijuana industry.
Kamin said the firms see marijuana as a lucrative new industry, but still worry about the potential ethical and legal pitfalls — and how it will affect their reputations.
Marijuana has become a multi-billion-dollar industry. California and more than 20 other states have legalized the drug for medical use, and the pot business has gotten a boost from more recent approvals of recreational use in Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, Washington state and Washington, D.C. Pot advocates hope growth continues, as they push for voters to approve recreational pot in California, Arizona, Nevada, Maine and Massachusetts next year.
The drug remains illegal under federal law, however, and the American Bar Association's rules of professional conduct prohibit lawyers from assisting in criminal conduct.
With this in mind, attorneys say they focus on providing advice about what state marijuana laws do and don't allow, and decline to answer questions about how clients can bend the rules.
"We're not your consigliere. We're not an organized crime family," said Khurshid Khoja, a legalization advocate and founder of San Francisco-based Greenbridge Corporate Counsel. "We're legitimate business people."

Khoja's firm is among a new crop dedicated solely to marijuana clients, including packaging companies and investors.
But for law firms with other practice areas, there is also concern about how non-pot clients will view their marijuana work.
At the Seattle, Washington-based law firm of Harris Moure, the marijuana practice group has a completely separate brand — Canna Law Group — with its own website.
"It was a calculated defense mechanism against the potential legal and reputational concerns," said Hilary Bricken, who heads up the group and boasts a unique accolade on her website — DOPE Magazine's attorney of the year.
Bricken started the practice group in 2010 and now brings in roughly $1 million of revenue to the firm each year, she said.
Marijuana law, in many ways, is no different from other legal practices, attorneys say. It involves contracts, real estate transactions, trademarks and regulatory compliance. What is unique, though, is the constant prospect of running afoul of the law.
"Everybody's question can be summarized like this: How can I engage in this type of activity without going to prison," said Aaron Lachant, an attorney at the Los Angeles-based law firm of Nelson Hardiman.
The legal issues that come up also often have little or no precedent, said Dan Garfield, an attorney at Foster Graham Milstein & Calisher in Denver, Colorado.
Garfield, whose firm got into the marijuana field several years ago, was recently working on an appeal of a federal court's ruling that a couple did not qualify for bankruptcy protection because their assets largely stemmed from marijuana enterprises.
"Lawyers don't like to say, 'I don't know,'" Garfield said, but for marijuana clients, he's says it far more often than for others.
For marijuana entrepreneurs, legal guidance can bring peace of mind.
Shy Sadis, 42, who has medical and recreational marijuana stores throughout Washington state, said Bricken has helped him trademark "The Joint," one of his store names, locate properties that would comply with the state's recreational marijuana rules and create forms that new patients must fill out.
"I haven't been shut down. I'm not in tax trouble," he said. "She's shown me the right way to run these businesses, so I don't get into trouble."

http://news.yahoo.com/legalization-lawyers-turn-business-pot-144226388.html

 

[Sunfire]

Yes, I agree and have said it before, it's an expensive and long battle. That article is also true when it says there's not a lot of precedence. There's very little case law that the lawyers can point to. We are making a lot of it as we go, which is why it's so expensive because the lawyers can't do as much copy and paste for their summaries and such. Elford has a lot of experience though and personal data and records that he can copy and paste. He submitted a 20 page summary with our appeal, opposing council submitted only 2 pages . We have to fight this battle now! We don't want to get screwed state wide in 2016!

 

[Yes4Prop215]

i should have been a fucking lawyer…or sent my lady to law school since she likes to argue so much.


I've been in quite the depressed and angered state about measure A lately, just downright infuriated that i live in a county where a gestapo government agency can invade our rights. feel pretty much hopeless and powerless to do anything meaningful. gonna call more lawyers tmro hopefully i can find some decent news without getting bent over $$ wise.

sun fire any update on how to fight the anonymous complaint system or discredit it? its so prone to abuse by both disgruntled neighbors as well as the police themselves.

 

[Yes4Prop215]

this shit is so fucking aggravating, constantly reminded of the police state we live in. just this morning on my way to get breakfast i see code enforcement and sheriff on the side of 162, harassing some poor old lady and her son on the side of the freeway in front of everyone driving by. wish i could have yelled at those fucking pieces of shit.

and has anyone read the opinion article by Chris Sommers in the orovilleMR? claiming that measure A is restoring peoples freedom to live quiet country life now(minus all the government agents in our backyards), and calling all medical marijuana growers "terrorists"….. chris sommers owns morning wood acres ranch (what a stupid ass name lol) in bangor, he was a key member in getting the butte cattle association endorsement of measure A….wish he could be violated by measure A and a compliance check.

 

[mojave green]

Plenty of hate going on in butte county.

 

[CanniDo Cowboy]

The below letter was taken off the Chico ER news site. Pretty much says it all. It also lays out the impending legal debacle Butte Co will soon find itself buried in as the season gets into full swing. Meanwhile, have some patience and just keep yer heads down fellas. Butte Co is way out of their league on this deal and I have to believe their over-zealous 3rd Reich marijuana eradication program will eventually fail, brought down by their own foolish arrogance....cc



Letter: Butte County will soon regret marijuana searches
POSTED: 04/26/15, 8:59 PM PDT | 16 COMMENTS
Butte County will soon regret marijuana searches

It’s unfathomably ignorant and abusive what the county officials have done.

They get Measure A passed to enforce pot cultivation rules, which may or may not be upheld in court.

Instead of just getting complaints from the public and investigating them, the county code enforcement and sheriffs teamed up and barged into what is estimated to be at least hundreds of properties without so much as obtaining a specific allegation of a violation of that ordinance, and in most cases, the actual complainant is the sheriffs themselves it is believed — a warrantless search.

Basically, what they did is hire an army of seven new code enforcement officers and teamed them up with carloads of sheriffs to carry on a campaign of terror and intimidation against a particular class of people. The judge issuing these erroneous “inspection” warrants, the code enforcement and sheriffs, the supervisors, the DA, and any other county staff involved seem very well guilty of conspiracy.

All could have been fine and the ordinance reasonably enforced in a constitutional and nonabusive manner but now Butte County, along with every official involved, have opened themselves up to millions upon millions in damages.

Read the following article online where a current federal court case was upheld to continue against the county officials in Lake County for conspiracy and civil rights issues: www.courthousenews.com/2015/02/04/medical-marijuana.

Butte County’s abuse and terror campaign makes that one look like child’s play.

I can’t grasp why they didn’t just leave well enough alone.

Childish.

— Garry Cooper, Durham

 

[Yes4Prop215]

what also sucks about how things are going is just how loosely organized the resistance is, there is no one single source to find out legal updates or info. there is no patients coalition or growers union like yuba.

literally all info is word of mouth on the streets between friends and growers and you can never know what is exactly real or fake. like for example, i heard from someone today that there will be a possible ruling as early as May 6th regarding measure A. basically the county is bringing forth proof that the 50-150sq ft restriction is not too restrictive in regards to the legal allowances of prop215. if they can't provide enough proof than its up to judge to suspend.

so who knows at this point…all i know is that busts are mounting up fast and every day I'm hearing about friends who are facing compliance checks. there was a big round of CE checks again in that same neighborhood, as well as chopper sightings as far as berry creek and lumpkin.