Sheriff: Marijuana ‘does not belong’ in Calaveras County

[burnin1]

GRRRR!!! Why do will still have to fight so hard after 20 years of medical marijuana?? This is in my backyard. So many people are still uneducated about cannabis and those in power play on their fears. I am getting too old for this anymore...... ~ Burnin1
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Sheriff: Marijuana ‘does not belong’ in Calaveras County

Many at Copperopolis meeting say they fear cannabis farmers

• By Charity Mane

Marijuana does not belong in Calaveras County but, if voters allow it to remain, should be taxed to help pay for government services including law enforcement, Sheriff Rick DiBasilio said during a town hall meeting Thursday night in Copperopolis.

“Let me get one thing straight: marijuana does not belong in our county,” DiBasilio said. “I support Measure C as a tax initiative … We need to either regulate it and tax it or ban it.”

“If the voters of this county want to approve marijuana, then we need this tax. It was illegal before the county made it legal. It is up to the citizens to keep it here or make it go away.”

More than 80 people from throughout the county attended the town hall meeting in the Copperopolis Armory. The event was hosted by Supervisor-elect Dennis Mills. In addition to DiBasilio, the audience also heard from District Attorney Barbara Yook, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection Tuolumne-Calaveras Unit Battalion Chief Mario Hernandez, Copperopolis Fire Protection District Battalion Chief Keith Cantrell and Lake Tulloch Alliance President Jack Cox.

The discussion quickly turned to cannabis.

“I’ve got a problem,” said Diamond XX resident Bob Toynbee of what he says are illegal cannabis farms in his area. “I’m getting scared … people with no business being in our area. I’m scared. What can we do?”

DiBasilio told crowd the crowd he shares their view of cannabis production.
DiBasilio said he needs additional staffing to cope with the influx of the marijuana growers and potential crimes that may follow. “My job is to protect you also from everyday crimes, robbery, burglary … if I had the staffing levels that existed in 2002, we would be able to combat all of this … my job is to enforce their (the board of supervisors’) decision.”

According to Yook, her office is currently prosecuting 10 homicide cases, “And seven of those are related to the cannabis industry.”

A member of the audience asked Yook how many medical marijuana cards exist in the county and how many plants patients can legally grow. Yook said that though the county Public Health Department does keep track of those who voluntarily apply for medical marijuana cards, county staff members cannot track all those who have medical marijuana recommendations from doctors.

“However, my best recollection is at this time they have 185 in the volunteer program,” she said.

“There is no limit to the number of plants the way our ordinance is written,” said DiBasilio. Instead, he said, the ordinance limits the canopy area of the marijuana plants to “100 square feet for a personal grow, 200 square feet for a personal grow with a second card holder.”

Commercial growers will in the near future be able to obtain state licenses for up to 22,000 square feet of canopy area, or about half an acre, DiBasilio said. The county ordinance is designed to register farms in accordance with the sizes allowed under state law. The county ordinance limits growing areas to a maximum of 15 percent of the area of the growers’ properties. DiBasilio said it is possible to fit up to 1,000 plants in a half-acre growing space.

“So far we have completed 50 inspections,” said DiBasilio of his agency’s visits to some of the 770 farms that registered. “Two passed. Of the 48 that didn’t, some had minor issues and some had major issues. There are some that are growing legally. I give them that. But many are not.”

The Sheriff’s Office has set up an anonymous cannabis tip hotline, 754-7820. “I don’t have enough staff to answer the calls, but the messages are listened to. The three guys I have assigned to this, well, when they are sitting in an office answering calls, they aren’t out in the field.”

Residents at the meeting expressed fear and confusion and asked about arming themselves for personal protection or volunteering with the Sheriff’s Office.

“It’s not the 1800’s when the sheriff could swear you in as a deputy and off you go,” DiBasilio said.

Some, however, said they want to be part of anti-marijuana enforcement action.

Doug Rockey stood and told the crowd, “You are a militia in this room. You are fighting for your community.”

DiBasilio, referring to his previously publicized communication with the commissioner of the California Highway Patrol regarding the upcoming harvest season, said, “They (CHP) will help with units on patrol and overhead for protection of the citizens and the growers to hopefully deter a potential criminal element coming from out of the area.”


http://www.calaverasenterprise.com/news/article_fe150ddc-6e42-11e6-a54a-c7bc708d002b.html

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

Maybe it is because sheriffs are elected officials (and thereby politicians) but don't they just seem to be the stupidiest of the LEOs? Why do they always think they can make their own rules? And it sounds as if people are afraid because the sheriff has been fear-mongoring.

 

[burnin1]

This Sheriff should focus on crime and not medical cannabis growers who hurt no one.

I live about 15 miles from Calaveras County in neighboring Mariposa County. It is even worse here for medical marijuana growers.

California is a big State and many medical marijuana patients will lose access to this medicine due to the actions of this Sheriff.

My heart goes out to the people who lost their livelihoods.

What a waste of taxpayers money and law enforcement resources.

I tip my hat to Norcalhal and others involved in this fight to educate the public in Calaveras County and resist this fear mongering Sheriff.

I don't mean to rant but this hits me close to home. ~ Burnin!
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Deputies Remove Thousands of Marijuana Plants from Illegal Grow in Calaveras County

Posted 5:48 PM, September 6, 2016, by Ali Wolf,

CALAVERAS COUNTY -- One by one, deputies ripped thousands of large marijuana plants from the ground in rural Calaveras County.

"We had an abatement warrant on this property, it's about eight acres, seven of it is covered in marijuana," said Sgt. Josh Crabtree.

Crabtree said the land owner rents out 15 plots for marijuana grows; much more than the county allows.

"The scale, the size of this one is the biggest we've seen so far, and the environmental impact this one is going to have is probably the worst we've seen," Crabtree said.

Crabtree said the owner began this large operation after his home burned in the Butte Fire last year.

And he's not alone, the massive wildfire burned hundreds of homes. Residents left and marijuana growers moved in.

"They've overwhelmed us with the amount of marijuana that's here," Crabtree said.

Now Calaveras County is forced to regulate the flood of new pot grows.

"As a law enforcement officer, everything has always been illegal, so now for me I have to get over the fact that this is how things are, this is, I guess, where the future's headed," Crabtree said.

A big transition for law enforcement, now working through uncharted territory.

"On top of the 1,000 people that registered, there's countless illegal grows, so it's out of hand, but we're fine tuning our processes," said Code Enforcement Officer Sabrina Cable.

Cable says many growers in the county are either operating illegally or not educating themselves about the new rules.

On this land, the owner was denied a permit to legally grow marijuana.

Now, thousands of dollars in fines are piling up ,and the owner will have to cover the cost of hacking, hauling and airlifting thousands of marijuana plants from the property.

The land owner could face criminal charges for the environmental damage caused by the illegal grows.

http://fox40.com/2016/09/06/deputie...plants-from-illegal-grow-in-calaveras-county/

Seven acres of marijuana chopped down on Tuesday near Mountain Ranch

Enterprise Photo by Terri Grillo

By Terry Grillo [email protected]
Updated 2 hrs ago

Helicopter removes cannabis from illegal garden

A helicopter went back and forth most of the day on Tuesday, clearing the trees along Jesus Maria Road above Mountain Ranch on the way in and on the way out, carrying big drooping bundles of chopped cannabis that made the receiving Calaveras County dump truck sway slightly when it was dropped into the bed. The air was thick with the odor of nearly-ripe marijuana.

“This was a low-key operation. We’d been out there seven times before and they knew what we were going to do,” said Calaveras County Sheriff Rick DiBasilio. He said the eighth visit was the removal of the plants.

He said the visits to the site began as a code enforcement case. Official with several departments investigated suspected violations of the county’s urgency ordinance to regulate commercial cannabis production. It ended with a signed warrant and the eradication squad.

“We’d been out flying and identified the grow, then we drove out to check on it,” he said.

DiBasilio said late Tuesday afternoon that 4,560 plants were taken, weighing about 16,000 pounds. The helicopter brought out 60 loads. At least three very large county dump trucks were waiting to receive the cannabis.

The drop area was across the road from the Central Calaveras Fire and Rescue Protection District station on Jesus Maria Road. There are three registered grow sites within easy view of the drop site and the fire district headquarters.

DiBasilio said more than eight acres of cannabis were eradicated from the grow site on Potteroff Road, and that multiple families were living there in four travel trailers and several outbuildings. He said no minor children were observed at the site.

DiBasilio said the property was owned by a different family when the Butte Fire destroyed their home a year ago. That family acquired a trailer from the Federal Emergency Management Agency assistance program, but then sold the property to new owners.

He said the new owners, who remained unidentified late Tuesday, leased the property to the group of growers. He said the parcel had water and electricity but a septic system had not been located.

“I told the families who are living there several times what was going to happen, but they decided to stay. When we went to eradicate, we noticed that one family had removed their plants from two areas and left,” he said.

DiBasilio described the removed plants as covering a minor part of the grow, “maybe a half-acre between them.”

“There were no arrests,” said the sheriff. “This is a civil issue.”
He said the cannabis was taken to the county landfill, where “it was buried and covered with garbage.”

http://www.calaverasenterprise.com/news/article_7510115e-749a-11e6-9b52-fb350907cbd2.html

 

[umbra]

The time for objecting to the grows has long since ended. If there were issues within Calaveras County about growing then they should have been addressed long before the growing licenses were issued. Calaveras County issued 780 licenses, and there are probably as many grows that did not register. So is it about growing, or growing without a license that is the problem?