Lake County law-enforcement and government officials fear property values and public safety will be threatened by a proposed ballot initiative that would allow up to 12 budding marijuana plants in residential backyards and 84 on parcels of seven acres or more. On rural parcels, “right to farm regulations” would apply, prohibiting the county or neighboring property owners from complaining the pot gardens are nuisances, Glenda Anderson reports in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. “It would just nuke people’s property rights up here. Just nuke ‘em,” Lake County Community Development Director Rick Coel said. The Lake [...]
LAKE COUNTY – Amidst several ongoing efforts to place referendums and initiatives on the June 2012 ballot in favor of medical marijuana dispensaries and cultivation, a new effort is moving forward to ban marijuana in the county altogether. On Thursday, Lake County Registrar of Voters Diane Fridley received a notice of intention to circulate a petition for the “Lake County Act to Adopt Federal Marijuana Laws,” Elizabeth Larson reports in the Lake County News. The petition’s statement of reasons explains, “Voters of Lake County, California need an alternative to the aggressive pro-pot agenda being pushed [...]
Lake County officials have given nine medical marijuana dispensaries in the unincorporated county until Dec. 6 to shut down or face enforcement proceedings. The crackdown was triggered by a pro-marijuana referendum effort that backfired, Glenda Anderson reports in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. That successful September referendum forced supervisors to rescind an ordinance that would have allowed five dispensaries in unincorporated Lake County. Referendum proponents contended that was too few. But without an ordinance, pot dispensaries are not allowed at all under Lake County zoning regulations. The time given existing dispensaries to operate temporarily has [...]
Clearlake police said a woman and her 18-year-old son were robbed at gunpoint in their home Tuesday afternoon by a man who pistol whipped the son and demanded marijuana before both victims began to fight him and he fled. The incident unfolded Tuesday afternoon at about 1:30 p.m. after the son answered the door at his family’s home in Clearlake Park and was threatened at gunpoint and pistol whipped before his mother came into the room and was herself confronted, police said. In each case, the gunman demanded marijuana and pointed the gun at the [...]
A Lake County man was in custody, suspected of kidnapping, violence and sexual assault involving a Ukiah man, sheriff’s officials reported Tuesday. Deputies arrested Arturo Pedro Gutierrez, 50, of Upper Lake. He was being held in Lake County Jail in lieu of $500,000 for multiple felony crimes, said Capt. Jim Bauman. The victim was a 22-year-old Ukiah man who said he’d been hired to work on the man’s Bridge Arbor Road ranch trimming marijuana plants, officials said. Deputies learned of the alleged crimes when the victim went to a Mendocino County hospital Friday for treatment [...]
Marijuana prompted several men to strong-arm their way into a west Santa Rosa home last week and tie up residents with duct tape. It lured a pair into an illicit garden in Round Valley where they were shot dead by its tenders. It led an unknown killer to shoot a 31-year-old father in his Santa Rosa garage, leaving him for dead and making off with the goods. Marijuana may be a mellowing depressant when ingested, but its trade often is the nexus of violence. The huge profits made in the marijuana business drive much of [...]
For decades, drug agents and illicit marijuana growers have engaged in a delicate game of cat and mouse in the rugged, remote forests of the North Coast. Authorities would swoop in to destroy a crop, only to find that the growers had faded into the wilderness. But that predictable pattern has been shattered this summer in violent confrontations that have left five suspected marijuana growers dead in four Northern California counties in the past seven weeks. It is an unparalleled level of violence in the 20-year history of coordinated marijuana eradication efforts, Glenda Anderson writes [...]
Law enforcement officials in Lake County on Tuesday discovered a 10,000 plant marijuana garden less than a mile from the garden in which an armed suspect was shot and killed by a Lake County deputy last week, according to the Lake County Sheriff’s Office. The dead man was identified Tuesday as Juan Sanchez Corona, 51, of Michoacan, Mexico, Lake County officials told the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. Lake County Sheriff’s deputies, along with state Campaign Against Marijuana Planting officers, also found and confiscated several loaded firearms and ammunition in the garden uncovered Tuesday on private [...]
Robert Schaerges is a student at UC Davis Law School and was born and raised in Lake County. His open letter to U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson appears in the Lake County News. I appreciate your time and leadership as my representative in Congress. I am currently a student at UC Davis Law School and was born and raised in Lake County. This letter is not about the military, but I noticed you were with the 173rd Airborne in Vietnam. I was with the 173rd Airborne in Afghanistan from 2005-2006 and in Iraq in 2007. It [...]
Two bodies found Thursday down an embankment in Lake County have been identified as the remains of a Maine couple who disappeared in January from Clearlake, where they had been hired to work in a marijuana growing operation, law authorities said Monday. Frank and Yvette Maddox, 32 and 40, disappeared after agreeing to give their employer, Robby Alan Beasley, a ride to the Sacramento airport, said Lake County Sheriff’s Capt. James Bauman. Beasley, 29, also initially from Maine, was arrested Saturday on a no-bail fugitive warrant issued in Maine for a probation violation related to [...]
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