Walnut Creek's medical marijuana to close Monday

Brian Hyman is giving up the fight to keep open Walnut Creek's controversial medical marijuana dispensary. The CEO of C3 Collective said that he'll close his Oakland Boulevard business Monday, a month after a Superior Court judge ordered the dispensary to close by Tuesday or face contempt-of-court charges.

C3 Collective opened in August, but it has been a bumpy ride to say the least. While the business, which claimed it offered legitimate, legal services only to people with medical marijuana prescriptions, the city immediately moved to close it down. The city, which is still studying the issue of whether it wants to allow any kind of medical marijuan dispensary within its borders, said the collective violated city zoning laws and slapped it with a $500-a-day fine.

Hyman talked about how he did the meet-and-greet with city, business and police officials--to support him staying open. The collective went so far as to join the Walnut Creek Chamber of Commerce, a move that accorded it this ribbon-cutting welcome by chamber representatives (Hyman is more optimistic times, back in October, when he hosted Walnut Creek Chamber of Commerce members at its ribbon-cutting opening.)

Finally, the judge agreed with the city and ordered the collective closed. Hyman says he will fight the penalties, which have accumulated to more than $60,000.

Judge orders Walnut Creek’s pot club closed

A Contra Costa County Superior Court judge granted a request for a preliminary injunction from the city of Walnut Creek and ordered the nonprofit medical marijuana dispensary to close by March 23 or to face contempt-of-court charges.  

C3 opened in August, but the city said its operations, near the Almond-Shuey neighborhood on Oakland Boulevard, violated city zoning laws.

In an interview with the Contra Costa Times, Bryan Wenter, assistant city attorney says that the city is not campaigning against medical marijuana by targeted this business for closure. Residents in Walnut Creek have plenty of other ways to get their pot.

“There are numerous other sources of medical marijuana in this county and other nearby counties . … There are also delivery services that come to Walnut Creek. … This is a land use matter.”

In the fall, before the club  hosted its official Walnut Creek Chamber of Commerce-attended grand opening, the city began fining C3 Collective $500 a day it was found opened. The city then filed a lawsuit in September, seeking a permanent injunction.  The preliminary injunction is a first step in that process.

C3 leaders did not respond to the Times’ calls for comment. And, as I just drove by, the club appeared to be closed with No Trespassing signs posted out front.

Want a pot grow room? Call this Walnut Creek company

Good Green Builders is a general contracting company that has made a specialty out of building hydroponic rooms for the cultivation of everything from orchids to tomatoes. "Have you ever dreamed of growing your own food indoors?" is a question the company asked on its website. The company also shows photos of its hydroponic rooms on its website, like the one shown here. 

Now the company’s three owners want to be the first company in the Bay Area, and possibly the nation, to build rooms for people designed for the legal cultivation of medical marijuana.

This is what the company’s three owners, William McKenzie, Brian Mitchell and Brett McCormick, have told the Oakland Tribune. They see profit potential in the medical marijuana industry.

“It’s very substantial,” McKenzie tells the Tribune. He adds that all of California would stand to benefit from an additional $1.5 billion in tax revenue if pot were legalized.

As the Tribune says:

Those figures hinge on one thing: Pot, which someone has to grow. Built-to-code grow rooms just make the endeavor safer and more legitimate. “This has been underground for so long,” McKenzie said.

Although the company’s mailing address is in Walnut Creek, its target market is Oakland, “the industry’s Bay Area epicenter” for the medical cannabis industry, according to the Tribune.

Of course, Walnut Creek isn't quite so, uh, unhip. It does have its own—albeit controversial—pot club, C3 Collective. And, the city is in the process of studying if and how it would allow medical marijuana dispensaries to establish themselves in town. Last year, the developer of another medical marijuana dispensary expressed interest in opening up in Walnut Creek, seeing a huge market of customers here and our suburb as becoming a national pioneer in how municipalities can regulate and earn income from pot clubs.

Pot, a treatment for alcoholism? But no "cure" yet for what ails Walnut Creek's own pot club

As members of Walnut Creek’s embattled pot club, C3 Collective staged a small “protest” at the City Council meeting Tuesday evening, new research from a UC-Berkeley lecturer made headlines in the medical marijuana world, suggesting marijuana as a treatment for alcoholism and addiction to other drugs.

“Substituting cannabis for alcohol has been described as a radical alcohol treatment protocol,” says Amanda Reiman, a lecturer at Cal’s School of Social Welfare, in her study, published in BioMed Central's open access Harm Reduction Journal.

Reiman considers cannabis to be a potentially safer drug than alcohol with fewer “negative side effects.” Her research focuses on the study and evaluation of medical marijuana dispensaries—such as C3 Collective on Oakland Boulevard—as community health providers, and on using cannabis as a substitute for alcohol and other drugs.

Her latest study features a poll of 350 cannabis users. The poll found that 40 percent used it to control their alcohol cravings, 66 percent as a replacement for prescription drugs and 26 percent for other, more potent, illegal drugs.

I know, I know. It would be nice if addicts of alcohol and other drugs could just give up all substances and live a clean, sober life. It’s challenging enough for me to give up some of my bad habits to have great admiration for a friend who gave up his long-time addiction to smoking.

Anyway, I’ve read up enough on the bio-physical realities of addiction to know that, for some people and with some drugs, it might take a lot more than will power, strong moral fiber, or a "higher power," to break free of an addiction.

Reiman belongs to the "harm reduction" approach to helping people address their self-destructive behavior. This approach, yes, has its detractors. She seems to believe that letting some addicts substitute pot for another, more harmful, substance, might be one way to go for them.

So, with this approach, could this mean that if you’re an alcoholic or a meth addict you could go to a doctor and get a prescription to smoke some pot instead of going to AA or NA? And could it mean that one day you could get your pot from C3 Collective?

That is, if C3 Collective, which opened this past summer, stays in business …

Collective members were at the City Council meeting Tuesday night, asking the city to stop trying to close it down, according to the Contra Costa Times. C3 currently is ordered to pay $500 a day in fines every day it is open for zoning violations.

While Walnut Creek has launched a study to look at if and how it would ever allow a medical marijuana dispensary to open in town, city officials currently say "no" to any pot clubs right now because their operation is illegal under federal law—though they are legal under state law. Walnut Creek officials have also filed a suit to shut down the collective because it, like any pharmacy, would be prohibited under zoning laws from operating in that particular location.

Could Walnut Creek follow West Hollywood's medical marijuana example?

I can see how the arrest over a suspect in the pot-deal-related shooting death of 17-year-old Rylan Fuchs will reignite the local debate about possible crime increases associated with legalizing for medical or recreational uses. In fact, Mickey Martin, a medical marijuana advocate and a regular contributor to CrazyinSuburbia's message board, already commented on my post about Wednesday’s arrest of Berkeley man in the Danville teen’s death.

All I can say that pot being illegal didn’t keep Fuchs safe. Yes, a drug deal gone bad, as authorities painted it, came to safe, suburban Danville. And, who knows whether Danville’s likely decision Monday to extend its temporary ban on allowing medical marijuana dispensaries in that town will prevent more such crimes.

Perhaps Walnut Creek, and Danville, for that matter, can look to another community for guidance on how to sucessfully regulate such businesses.

West Hollywood--that 1.9-square-mile bastion of progressive politics, surrounded by the Los Angeles behemoth—has adopted what has been described in the Los Angeles Times as a strict ordinance on medical marijuana operations. The result?

A peaceful and even welcome co-existence between pot clubs and their neighbors.

In West Hollywood, city officials say, it's been more than two years since a resident has complained about a dispensary. Neighborhood watch leaders say their streets are safer because the dispensary guards are required to walk nearby blocks. School officials welcome dispensaries as neighbors. And the L.A. County Sheriff's Department, which patrols the city, says there have been no recent crimes at dispensaries and no calls from agitated neighbors.

How did this come about?

Confronted with its own dispensary explosion in 2005, [West Hollywood] imposed a moratorium on dispensaries, clamped interim rules on the ones that were open, passed a strict ordinance and capped the number allowed at four, all within two years.

The city also decided that dispensaries, to discourage robberies, must deposit each day's cash and meet regularly with city officials to discuss any problems, which so far have been few. Security guards have to patrol a two-block radius to prevent loitering and smoking, and guards must be unarmed.

One of West Hollywood’s dispensaries, Farmacy, is located within 500 feet of a private school. A school parents group initially complained about people smoking pot in a nearby parking lot, so Farmacy’s pharmacist, who has treated critically ill patients with marijuana for more than 15 years, started working with the parents’ group. She gave them tours of her store, hired security and banned smoking in the parking lot. The Farmacy, like the other dispensaries, belongs to the Chamber of Commerce and its manager serves on a community advisory board.

"We're just part of the community, a part of the neighborhood,” the pharmacist told the Los Angeles Times.

Walnut Creek’s new and controversial dispensary, C3 Collective, likewise belongs to the Chamber of Commerce, and the Oakland Boulevard business even received a big Chamber of Commerce welcome at its official grand opening, as I reported. C3 Collective’s CEO Brian Hyman has likewise offered business, city, and police leaders tours of his store and stated a desire for the dispensary to be part of the community.

We’ll see what happens with our own pot club.

Our local pot club not necessarily celebrating the Obama administration's policy on not prosecuting medical marijuana sales

The U.S. Justice Department announced earlier this week that it will not enforce a federal pot law in states that allow the sale of medical marijuana.

But this news has been met with everything from optimism to wariness to disappointment to outright denunciation among advocates of medical marijuana. Supposedly, patients in states where medical marijuana is legal, including California, can now light up without fear of federal reprisal.

But ...

An editorial in the Contra Costa Times says the new guidelines for federal prosecutors, handed down this week with the blessing of Attorney General Eric Holder, are "not good enough."

They are "are an attempt to thread a political needle rather than a recognition of the value of the drug and a deferral to the desire of voters in 14 states."

Yes, it is heartening, the Times says, that federal prosecutors are told to not focus resources on "individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana."

Still, the federal policy states that " 'clear and unambiguous compliance with state law' " is not a legal defense to violation of federal law."

Bottom line, the Times says, these new "squishy" guidelines fail to offer providers of medical marijuana any real protection from being prosecuted under federal law. These operators could still be prosecuted, if federal prosecutors get an itch to do so.

Sure, no one is naive enough to believe that every pot club, or every doctor taking payment to write medical marijuana prescriptions, is only dispensing to people who are seriously suffering from painful, devastating, life-alterating medical conditions. Sure, some people might be manipulating the medical marijuana system to obtain pot for recreational purposes. Okay, I might be venturing here into the whole debate over whether the use and sales of marijuana should be legalized. (I think it should, as I've suggested before.)

Meanwhile, back to decriminalizing the use and sales of medical marijuana: There might be medical marijuana dispensaries that are--OMG--operating legitimately, legally, and responsibly. That is, they are only selling it to people with a true medical need.

It's possible that there are a number of such facilities in California, in the Bay Area, even in Walnut Creek.

With regard to our hometown pot club--C3 Collective: This business appears to have put in quite an effort to demonstrate its desire to stay in Walnut Creek and to work with the local business leaders and the city to show it can be a good neighbor and a positive community member. The Walnut Creek Chamber of Commerce welcomed C3 Collective's opening a couple weeks ago (pictured above), although chamber members, at the ribbon-cutting ceremony, hastened to add that they always welcome new businesses and members to its organization.

The New York Times Bay Area blog talked to C3 Collective's CEO Brian Hyman. He was guarded about the new federal guidelines. Federal guidelines or not, C3 Collective continues to rack up fines of up to $500 a day from the city for continuing to dispense marijuana. According to the city, C3 Collective's decision to dispense marijuana puts it in violation of city zoning codes and a nuisance ordinance that prohibits the operation of any organization in the city that violates federal law.

“It’s really sad to see such a level of change and understanding and reflection and then to have our collective get put through the ringer,” Hyman told the New York Times.

But City Attorney Paul Valle-Riestra said the C3 collective received its business permit without disclosing the fact that it sells marijuana. Its owners "knew from the outset it wasn’t something the city allowed," Valle-Riestra told the Times.

Nonetheless, the city has launched an in-house study over if and how it will allow medical marijuana dispensaries to open in town. As the New York Times concluded: The Justice Department memo and C3 Collective's situation "raise the question whether and how cities and counties will manage medical marijuana dispensaries in the future."

Walnut Creek Chamber welcomes C3 Collective with ribbon-cutting ceremony

C3 Collective, the controversial medical marijuana dispensary, officially opened its doors this week with a ribbon-cutting ceremony overseen by (pictured above) CEO Brian Hyman and representatives of the city's Chamber of Commerce.

Yes, it is a delicate matter for the Chamber, celebrating the opening of a business against which the city has filed suit. The city asserts that the Oakland Boulevard dispensary is operating illegally because it is violating Walnut Creek's zoning laws. Hyman says that C3 Collective is piling up about $500 a day in fines and must pay up nearly $15,000 by the first week of November. But he adds that C3 is determined to stay open. It wants to be a part of the community and to provide vital medical services to the public, he says.

C3 Collective also serves as the city's first, openly operating reminder of the local, state, and national debate on if and when to make marijuana legal for certain purposes.

Despite the controversy, one chamber "ambassador" said that the chamber makes it a practice to welcome new businesses to the city, and new members to its organization. The C3 Collective, a nonprofit "wellness collective," joined the chamber, and is therefore entitled to a chamber ribbon cutting ceremony.

The ceremony was accompanied by live music, and plates of sandwiches, salads and cookies provided by Morucci's, the excellent Boulevard Way delicatessen. Some attendees, including chamber representatives, were delightfully surprised by the clean and chic interiors of the collective--dark, hardwood floors, modernist furniture. A few joked about whether the refreshments would also include some free samples of the featured product.

Besides being able to purchase marijuana--for the time being, for however long it can stay open--members can also enjoy "wellness services," such as yoga, meditation, and massage classes, and can find referrals for legal consulting and hospice services.

C3 Collective, which, in fact, boasts of a "chic, boutique environment," offers a variety of medical marijuana products: "top-shelf strains to suit the divergent tastes of our patients." The collective seeks to find "what is best for each individual, hoping to consistently and effectively deliver the results that each individual wants."

Chic? Boutique? Well, you couldn't expect anything less from Walnut Creek, could you?

Marijuana Paranoia: Our perplexing attitudes about pot and crime, but what about crime and that other socially acceptable mind-altering substance?

I’m sure some opponents of Walnut Creek allowing a medical marijuana dispensary in town are frothing at this local news: How a shooting erupted in Concord Sunday over an attempt by six suspects (er, idiots) to steal marijuana plants being legally grown in someone’s back yard.

Apparently, a man suffered a flesh wound in the leg, possibly at the hands of his own associates, after he or someone from his crew was caught in the backyard of a home where the residents had a legal right to grow marijuana for medical purposes. You can read more about the attempted pot plant theft, the attempted getaway, and the shooting at Claycord.com.

But certainly, the Reefer Madness fearmongers would say, such an incident shows that allowing a medical marijuana dispensary in Walnut Creek will attract similar robberies and other violent crime to our fair city.

And, absolutely, these fear mongers would assert, such an incident provides more evidence that marijuana is a dangerous, destructive, crime- and violence-ridden drug.

It would be silly of me to say that marijuana cultivation, sales, use, and abuse are victimless, crime-free vocations. There is this incident, and, off the top of my head, I can think of two recent homicides in the East Bay suburbs that possibly involved pot deals gone bad. They include the shooting death of 17-year-old Rylan Fuchs of Danville earlier this year and the December 2007 killing of Eric Martin, of Pittsburg, in Walnut Creek over a failed marijuana growing and distribution scheme.

But are there any other mind-altering substances, whose cultivation and/or manufacture, sales, use, and abuse attract crime, including robberies, assaults, and homicide?

Of course!Alcohol!

The stuff of beer, wine, and Grey Goose martinis.

Once again, I’ll repeat that alcohol—mostly in the form of red wine—is my drug of choice. I like it--perhaps too much. But that's a whole other story.

As for pot, I have not tried it since college. I didn't like it much then, and have no desire to use it at any time in the future. The smell? Ick.

And who wants to be around a bunch of stoners? If you're not stoned? Although, I have to say that being around a bunch of people blissed out on weed would be no worse than—and might even be preferable—to being around loud, annoying drunks. Among these drunks, I’m including a very obnoxiously vocal and tipsy silver-haired man in a polo shirt (a lawyer? Bank executive? Real estate entrepreneur?) who was toting a wine glass and making an ass of himself on North Main Street during last week’s Fall Wine Walk. This wine-tasting event, hosted by the Downtown Business Association, was, remember, a fundraiser to benefit local Walnut Creek schools.

Again, what about alcohol and it's connection to crime and destruction? No wait! Alcohol is legal, so it’s harmless, right? It doesn’t cause death, destruction, or crime, right?

Well, of course, we all know it does. We’re familiar with the fact that alcohol is involved in thousands of traffic fatalities every year across the United States. We also know that long-term alcohol abuse is associated with tragic health consequences, astronomical medical costs, and the breakdown of families and communities.

The U.S. government says about both alcohol and tobacco, which are both legal in this country, for recreational use, to people of a certain age: "Alcohol and tobacco cost society a great deal every year in terms of crime, lost productivity, tragedies, and deaths. ... As a result of legal settlements and vigorous public education efforts, many Americans are aware of the dangers of dependence and addiction associated with alcohol and tobacco use. Even so, alcohol and tobacco remain a significant part of the American health problem."

So, we might be aware that alcohol is a major health problem, but most of us probably don't think of it as a major crime problem as well. But it is, and like marijuana and other drugs, it contributes to our local, state, and national crime rates. Alcohol, notably, is a major factor in domestic violence.

From the U.S. Department of Justice:

• About 3 million violent crimes occur each year in which victims perceive the offender to have been drinking at the time of the offense.


• Another Justice Department study found that that alcohol abuse was a factor in 40 percent of violent crimes committed in the United States.


• Among those victims who provided information about the offender's use of alcohol, about 30 percent of the victimizations involved an offender who had been drinking.


• Two-thirds of victims who suffered violence by an intimate (a current or former spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend) reported that alcohol had been a factor. Among spouse victims, three out of four incidents were reported to have involved an offender who had been drinking.

Let's return to alcohol’s contribution to annoying, life-style crimes in downtown Walnut Creek. As I mentioned in a prior story, the Walnut Creek police reported that 1515 Restaurant and Lounge attracted their attention seven times between late July and late August. Police had to come to arrest drunks, and patrons not cooperating with state Alcoholic Beverage Control agents. Police also had to hear from a father who was alarmed that his daughter got so tanked up on booze at 1515 and/or other downtown establishments that she couldn’t talk or walk, and had to be carried to her car.

1515 Restaurant operates legally, as do some nearly 100 other liquor-dispensing establishments in town. After crying about lost profits due to their 12:30 a.m. closing time, the owners of 1515, Jack and Tony Dudum, received permission from the City Council to stay open a half hour later. They needed this extra time so that they could sell more beer, wine, and cocktails--to earn more money. To stay in business. To turn a profit. That is, they were given permission to dispense more mind-altering substances legally, and for recreational purposes, with profit as a prime motive.

But pot? Well, some city leaders and members of the public have gotten huffy and expressed their grave concerns about C3 Collective—just one venue so far—dispensing pot in town. The owners of this pot club, which has been hit with a lawsuit to shut down, claim they are dispending pot, not for recreational purposes or for profit, but to benefit people with serious medical conditions.

C3 owners may or may not be telling the truth. I will assume they are, until someone proves otherwise. Meanwhile, we have plenty of other venues in downtown that are dispensing the mind-altering substance of alcohol—for recreational purposes and, most definitely, for a profit. I could fill a page with their names, but here are just a few. Besides the above-mentioned 1515, which by the way allegedly caters to an “mature, upscale crowd,” there are the upscale restaurants Prima, Va de Vi, Lark Creek Walnut Creek, and the Walnut Creek Yacht Club. There are also markets and drug stores like Whole Foods Market, Trader Joe’s (Two Buck Chuck!), Safeway, CVS Pharmacy, and 7-Eleven.

I'm sure in the history of any of these establishments--mostly likely the grocery and convenience stores--someone has come in and tried to steal a bottle or two of something. From my police reporting days, this was a fairly regular occurance at grocery and convenience stores: thefts of booze that amounted to a misdemeanor shoplifting. It might involve someone who is dependant on alcohol, shoplifting a bottle, or kids eager to get their hands on a six-pack or a bottle of hard liquor.

How is this kind of theft so much different from what those idiots in Concord were trying to do, when they were attempting to steal a bit of weed from that legally grown backyard crop?

Marijuana and alcohol: Both mind-altering substances. Both legal, with varying restrictions. Both promise to pleasure the senses, including smell and taste. Both offer the promise of relaxation, escape, and an altered mental state. And, both, when abused in terms of sales, distribution or use, become the source of devastating consequnces.

But why is one substance culturally embraced, celebrated as a symbol of the California good life, and used to entice people into donating money to help local school kids? And why is the other substance treated with contempt and mostly outlawed, when there is no evidence, I can find so far, that it causes society any more harm than the other? I'm trying to figure that one out.

Lawsuits, threats of preliminary injunctions? For now, C3 Collective will stay open

Is C3 Collective on its way out, as fellow Walnut Creek blogger The DubC suggests?

The city would like Walnut Creek’s first medical marijuana dispensary to cease its operations, until the city has a chance, through a program it authorized at its City Council meeting Tuesday night, to study the various legal implications of having such a business in town, before it gives its go-ahead for any such storefront to open its doors.

The city filed a lawsuit in Contra Costa County Superior Court, asking a judge to order C3 Collective to halt its cannabis dispensing operations. Realistically, any trial and final decision for this lawsuit is a year out, confirmed City Attorney Paul Valle-Riestra. The city is likely to seek a preliminary injunction, asking the court to suspend C3’s operation pending resolution of the lawsuit.

As of Thursday night, C3’s doors were still open for business, and its staff remained determined to provide its “medication” to patients in need, an employee said. I tried to reach C3 Collective CEO Brian Hyman, but he was in meetings, including in an interview with KTVU, whose report on the latest twist in this controversy you can view here.

C3 Collective is currently violating the city’s 45-day moratorium on medical cannabis dispensaries and is racking up fines of $500 fines. On Wednesday, Hyman told me that his dispensary was determined to remain open, mostly out of obligation to its clients who suffer chronic pain and other medical conditions whose symptoms are alleviated by the use of marijuana.

In any event, if C3 Collective shuts its doors, because it can't afford this legal battle, another collective is posed to step in and take its place.

At Tuesday night’s City Council meeting Larry Flick of Greenleaf said he plans to open what he calls a "wellness center." C3 Collective also billed itself as a wellness center. Like C3, Flick said his shop would dispense medical marijuana, as well as offer massage, yoga and counseling. Flick said he plans to work with the city on opening his center.

A major criticism of C3 among Walnut city staff and leaders is that it opened this summer and billed itself as a “wellness center,” with no mention, initially, that it would also provide medical marijuana, Valle-Riestra said. The city only learned indirectly that this pot club had opened in town, and the city had nothing on its books to say how it would regulate shops that distribute medical marijuana. Walnut Creek laws also prohibit activity in town that is banned by federal law.

So, the city asked for the 45-day moratorium and on Tuesday voted to establish this staff work program to study if and how to allow pot clubs to open in town, including the zoning and legal implications.

Besides Neiman Marcus, the Walnut Creek Council also voted on two downtown venues that dispense mind-altering substances: 1515 and C3 Collective

The City Council agreed at its meeting Tuesday night to allow 1515 Restaurant Bar and Lounge to extend its hours to 1 a.m. after hearing from Tony and Jack Dudum, the son-and-father owners. Tony and Jack Dudum, and their supporters, made the case that the city should support local business owners in light of the tough economy.

The Dudums said that their North Main Street business, which serves food and dispenses cocktails, beer, wine (containing the drug, alcohol), is a classy operation that caters to a more mature, upscale crowd—unlike, I suppose, other bars and clubs that cater to wild, drunken 20somethings. As in their appearance at the July 23 Planning Commission meeting, the Dudum duo talked about their profile in the community; being long-time local residents who care about Walnut Creek and its success, and of their desire to give back to the community by hosting charitable events.

The Council was amenable to allowing 1515 to extend its hours from 12:30 a.m. to 1 a.m. after the Dudums rescinded their request to stay open until 1:45 and to provide dancing and live entertainment. The Dudums agreed to scale back their appeal as a way of showing good faith in working with the city, which, by the way, is in the midst of trying to figure out—through a task force—how it regulates and polices all its liquor-dispensing restaurants and clubs in downtown.

And, yes, I’m sure I’ll get some flak for referring to 1515 as dispensing “mind-altering” substances. Then again, what is alcohol, if not a mind-altering substance?

As I’ve said before, it’s my drug of choice, and I’ll even be at Walnut Creek’s Fall Wine Walk this evening, tasting some nice wine—that’s right, ingesting my drug of choice—at this Downtown Business Association-hosted fundraiser for local schools.

And, sure, I bet you can see where I’ll be heading now and in the future with this debate about the presence of Walnut Creek’s medical marijuana dispensary, C3 Collective.

Onto the C3 Collective issue, in which the Council voted to set up a staff “work group” to study options for regulating medical marijuana dispensaries in town.

Last night’s discussion brought out quite a crowd of speakers, including a gentleman who said that he would soon submit an application to the city to open a second pot club in town.

Most of the other speakers were medical cannabis users, and most lived in Walnut Creek or nearby towns. Two were Rossmoor residents, who said that C3 Collective, which opened this summer on Oakland Boulevard, offers an important product for locals who suffer chronic pain and other discomfort from cancer and other medical conditions. Some said they would prefer to use marijuana to alleviate their pain symptoms than more “toxic” mainstream drugs like Vicodin and Oxycontin.

One speaker, who lives in the neighborhood around Oakland Boulevard, expressed concern about the nuisance crime and riff-raff this dispensary might attract.

But another speaker pointed out—rightly—that 1515 Restaurant and other alcohol-dispensing establishments in downtown had long attracted their share of riff-raff and nuisance crimes. In fact, in the city staff report for Tuesday night’s City Council consideration of 1515 Restaurant’s appeal, police noted that riffraff and nuisance behavior at 1515 in a month-long period had required police attention a total of seven times.

In one case, agents from the state Alcoholic Beverage Control (what were they doing at 1515, by the way?) arrested a customer for public intoxication and had to call police when other drunken customers tried to interfere with the arrest. In another case, in late July, a resident called to say that he had to go to 1515 to pick up his very boozed-up daughter, who could no longer speak or walk and had to be carried to the car. The man said the 1515 staff had over-served his daughter.

So far, according to C3 Collective staff, police have not had to respond to their dispensary for such incidents. And C3 CEO Brian Hyman has insisted, at the Council meeting, and in a conversation with yours truly, that he operates within the state Justice Department guidelines for medical cannabis dispensaries. He adds that more than 60 percent of his clients are 40 years and older and 35 percent are women. Fewer than 10 percent are under the age of 21, and he mentioned a couple of incidents in which local teenagers, armed not with marijuana prescriptions but just with driver’s licenses—duh!—tried to come into C3 Collective and buy pot. They were politely turned away.

Well, the presence of C3 Collective raises a whole host of issues that the city must study—legal, zoning, crime, and the overall appropriateness of such a business in the city. The staff will take several months to complete their study, completing it, at the earliest, in March. The results should help the Council make a final decision on whether to allow C3 Collective or any other dispensary to set up shop in town.

This lengthy time frame disappointed C3 supporters, because legally, C3 must suspend its operations until it receives approval from the City Council to dispense its brand of medications. However, C3 CEO Brian Hyman vowed to stay open, at a cost of $500 a day in fines. He said he can’t let down his club members, medical patients, he says, who depend on his product to stay pain free and to function in their daily lives.

In their testimonials in favor of C3, supporters pointed out that Walnut Creek is an East Bay center for the health care industry, with our two large hospitals, John Muir and Kaiser Permanente. Why, they wondered, can’t Walnut Creek take the lead on this medical marijuana issue, be at the forefront of cities around the state in finding ways to accommodate legitimate, legally-compliant medical pot clubs—which are allowed under the state voter-approved Proposition 215.

To them, the debate over C3 represents important questions about people’s rights to gain access to medication. C3 is not in the business of peddling mind-altering substances for recreational use—unlike, say 1515 Restaurant, or any restaurant or bar in town, classy and upscale or not.

Why doesn’t Walnut Creek vote to tax its new pot club?

We could follow the lead of Oakland, where 80 percent of voters in July said yes to a special landmark measure to tax sales of marijuana at the city’s four licensed medical cannabis dispensaries. Walnut Creek could become the second city in the United States to tax proceeds on medical marijuana. It could tax its new dispensary, the C3 Collective on Oakland Boulevard.

Walnut Creek could become another West Coast trend setter!

The Oakland measure imposes a 1.8-percent gross receipts tax, which amounts to about $18 for every 1,000 in marijuana sales. One Oakland dispensary, whose owner celebrated the measure, will have to pay more than $350,000 from the new tax next year. “It is important because the city of Oakland is facing a massive deficit like many jurisdictions in California," said the owner, Steve DeAngelo.


Hey, Walnut Creek is facing a major budget deficit. That’s one reason why the City Council and business and community leaders want Neiman Marcus to come to town: the potential sales tax revenues.

Okay, I can just hear the cries of outrage. How dare I compare posh Neiman Marcus and its posh patrons to a not-so-posh pot club and its maybe-not-so posh patrons?


To borrow a term from the great American capitalist Michael Corleone, I’m right now, for the sake of an argument, looking at this medical marijuana issue from a “strictly business” standpoint. Perhaps, the potential economic benefits revenues from having a medical marijuana dispensary in town could be one of the issues the city looks at as it studies the issue, after instituting its 45-day ban on C3 Collective's operations.

Fellow Walnut Creek blogger, the DUBC, touches on the economic motives of the medical marijuana business and has a very good debate going about the arrival of this dispensary in town. The DUBC also provides some interesting background on Brian Hyman, the owner of the C3 Collective, and of the club’s renowned, pro-marijuana supporters. You can read it here. Actually, the DUBC uses more harsh language in referring to these economic motives. He calls it a “medical marijuana sham.” The DUBC writes: “Let’s get real about this. It's about making money and getting high.”

(Making money and getting high? Gee, couldn’t you say the same thing about the liquor and wine industry and the bars around town. For liquor and wine makers and bar owners, isn’t it all about them making money to help us get high?)

The DUBC continues: “The legislation started with people that had ‘serious medical conditions.’ Now for every cancer patient there are a hundred 18- to 20-year-olds getting prescriptions for insomnia, back pain and stress. They pay $100 for a ten minute "consultation" and can go get their medicine. … If the people vote for legalization then we are all for it. Until then, keep this stuff out of our city.”

I agree that we as a society need to get this marijuana legalization question settled. For the record, I would probably be in favor of legalizing marijuana, not because I myself would partake—I tried it a couple times in high school and college and didn’t like it. I would be in favor because I like to drink wine, and not just for the flavor. I drink wine because, at the end of the day, it makes me feel nice. I don’t think I—or anyone else who seeks that “nice” feeling from a glass of wine or a lemondrop or apple-tini—is in the position to judge someone who prefers to smoke marijuana as their path to feeling "nice."

Also I voted for Proposition 215, but I agree with the point the DUBC is raising about the real motives of many in the medical marijuana world. These pot growers, distributors, and dealers, as well as producers of paraphernalia and pot candy, didn’t entirely get into the business to ease the suffering of cancer and AIDS patients. Oh, sure, some might genuinely view themselves as healers, and some might do some good for very sick people.

But, it’s also about money. Lots and lots of money.

And speaking of money, in my post yesterday, arguing that Wallnut Creek is not all that conservative, one reader correctly pointed out that our non-partisan city government generally leads towards retail, real estate and other business concerns. Such as Neiman Marcus, and urban-style mixed-use developments, and bars and restaurants. So, if that’s how our city council leans, why not throw the C3 Collective into this mix of potential local revenue generators?


As for the DUBC’s statement about keeping “this stuff out of our city.” Well, I’m sure he knows that this stuff is already in our city, whether it comes from C3 Collective or some dealer peddling in a parking lot.