A couple of one-time Rohnert Park police officers spent years posing as ATF agents and shaking down legal medical marijuana drivers for their cash and stash, and they got busted, but now their sentencing is delayed.

Before we had recreational marijuana at the beginning of 2018, we had the medical marijuana era, a sort of “wild west” period when, well, laws and regulations were much looser. Weed businesses tested these loosely regulated boundaries, as did criminals, as did cops who were criminals on the side. One notorious case of the latter was two Rohnert Park police officers who would pull over and shake down medical marijuana drivers, while falsely posing as federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms (ATF) agents, and simply stealing the drivers’ weed and cash for themselves.  

These now-former officers Brendan “Jacy” Tatum and Joseph Huffaker were eventually arrested and indicted, and have turned on each other in a sense, or at least, Huffaker testified against Tatum in exchange for a lighter sentence. That sentence was supposed to have been handed down Wednesday, but Bay Area News Group reports that Huffaker’s sentencing has been delayed until February 4, because he fired his attorney (who still appeared in court Wednesday), which also means a likely delay in Tatum’s sentencing that’s scheduled for February 18.

Oh and as a hilarious aside, KQED reported last year that Tatum was busted for an illegal marijuana grow on his property last February. “I made a mistake, I know,” he reportedly told inspectors who discovered this. “I’m just trying to make some money and get things squared away for my family before I go to prison.”

Regardless, the other cop Huffaker is hoping for a sentence of home confinement and one year of supervised release. Prosecutors scoff and want a five-and-a-half year prison sentence, despite that Huffaker has many supportive letters from his buddies in law enforcement.

“Despite significant familial and community support that many defendants don’t have, as well as a solid job and relative financial security, [Huffaker] engaged in criminal activity based seemingly on greed and a desire to exert power over those within his domain,” prosecutors said in a sentencing memo, per the News Group.

Though perhaps we should not feel that bad for former Rohnert Park police officer Joseph Huffaker. As the Bay Area News Group points out, the City of Rohnert Park had to pay him a $75,000 settlement to get him to quit his job as a cop, despite the lengthy list of federal charges against him.

Related: Oakland PD Officer Placed On Leave After Giant Illegal Marijuana Grow Found in His Antioch Home [SFist]

Image: SAN FRANCISCO - JUNE 22: A Federal law enforcement agent carries a pile of marijuana plants siezed during a raid of a medicinal marijuana club June 22, 2005 in San Franciso, California. The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that Federal authorities may prosecute sick people whose doctors prescribe marijuana to ease pain, concluding that state laws don't protect users from a federal ban on the drug. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

On top of state murder charges in the killing of Oakland Police Officer Tuan Le, federal prosecutors have now filed conspiracy charges against nine individuals in connection with the multiple marijuana thefts that preceded the fatal shooting.

Oakland Police Officer Tuan Le was fatally shot in a barrage of gunfire in late December 2023, while sitting inside an unmarked pickup truck with another plainclothed officer, outside the Peakz cannabis growing operation at Embarcadero and Ninth Avenue in Oakland.

Four men were arrested shortly after the killing and charged with Le's murder: Marquise Cooper, Mark Demetrious Sanders, Allen Brown, and Sebron Russell. Cooper had state charges against him dropped last year, but now he, Brown, and Russell have been charged in federal court with conspiring to distribute, possessing with intent to distribute, and attempting to possess with intent to distribute more than 100 marijuana plants.

Sanders, who investigators believe was the one to pull the trigger and fire 20 shots, was not among those federally indicted on these same charges — his case appears to be getting handled separately, and he's referred to as "unnamed co-conspirator" by the feds.

According to a release from the US Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California, Brown and Russell also faces firearm charges tied to drug trafficking. And Sanders's mother and girlfriend, Felicia Sanders and Jasmine Kumar, are both being federally charged as accessories after the fact.

The federal indictment, unsealed Thursday, further charges four other individuals with the same conspiracy: Janiero Booth — aka Javon Herrington — Jowaun Jones, Shawn McGee, and Salvador Munguia.

According to the indictment, Sanders, Cooper, Brown, and Russell committed two burglaries of marijuana plants from the grow facility the night of December 28, 2023 and the morning of December 29. Booth, Jones, McGee, and Munguia were then recruited to help with the third attempt around 4 am, at which time multiple police officers descended on the place, and the shooting occurred.

A total of 100 marijuana plants were allegedly taken.

Prosecutors say that Felicia Sanders and Kumar, knowing what had happened, helped Mark Sanders hide from authorities and gave him a one-way plane ticket out of town. Felicia Sanders was previously arrested in the state case.

All nine individuals were either in custody already or were arrested Wednesday, and some are scheduled to make court appearances on Monday in federal court in San Francisco.

The state murder case is proceeding as well, and it's unclear if Sanders may also face federal charges.

Previously: 27-Year-Old Stockton Man Arrested In Fatal Shooting of Oakland Cop Served Five Years For Another Oakland Shooting

Photo via Getty Images

Former Cafe Flore owner Terrance Alan started as a member of the “gay weed mafia” that won medical marijuana legalization in 1996, and co-founded the SF Entertainment Commission. And the Flore Dispensary owner has just passed away at age 73.

If there were a Mount Rushmore honoring the four San Franciscans who are most responsible for legal marijuana, Terrance Alan’s face would be on that Mount Rushmore, along with Dennis Peron and Brownie Mary.

In the 1990s, the SFPD described Terrance Alan as part of “Dennis Peron’s gay weed mafia,” and often busted Alan’s parties. But once Peron, Alan, and Brownie Mary worked to legalize medical marijuana in 1996’s Prop 215, Terrance Alan co-founded the nation’s first ever nonprofit cannabis dispensary CHAMP (Californians Helping to Alleviate Medical Problems) right here in San Francisco. Alan has most recently been the owner of the Castro’s Flore Dispensary, and co-founded City Hall’s SF Entertainment Commission in 2009.

But as noted in the above post from SPARC dispensary CEO Erich Pearson, Terrance Alan has died. SFst confirmed the sad news with staff members at the Flore Dispensary. He was 73.

“Terrance always rose to the occasion,” Pearson told SFist on Monday. “Every time I ever talked to Terrance or was around Terrance, there was always some community project he was working on. He was a tireless advocate for the community. He always put the community first.”

Any of us would do well in life to earn the kind of writeup Alan got in this 2009 New York Times profile. As the Times described, “Terrance Alan has worked in construction and owned strip joints, taught handicapped children and peddled low-budget gay pornographic movies, mostly starring Terrance Alan.”

These days Alan is best known as the founder and owner of the Castro’s Flore dispensary, and was also the co-owner of the famed Cafe Flore across the street from 2016 to its then-closure in 2020. (Cafe Flore became Fisch & Flore under new ownership last year, but that too has since closed.) And when he was co-owner of Cafe Flore, Alan tried to start serving infused cannabis drinks, until the law told him he could not do that.

But Terrance Alan did many other things that law said he could not do, because he got the laws changed. “It was Cafe Flore where Dennis Peron and Brownie Mary met and came up with the idea of Prop 215,” Alan told me in 2018.

He then worked to help pass Prop 215, and after its passage helped establish the SF dispensary CHAMP. Once recreational cannabis arrived in late 2016, Alan co-wrote what would be SF’s legal marijuana laws on the San Francisco Cannabis Legalization Task Force and the state-level California State Legalization Task Force.

“When [legal] cannabis came around and there was a void on the cannabis task force, Terrance was the one who stepped up and just put voluminous amounts of work and volunteer hours to building a task force that worked for the cannabis industry,” Pearson tells us.

You may also remember Alan’s work establishing the Love Parade that used to happen in the mid-2000s. Alan also founded the advocacy group SF Late Night Coalition, which became legitimate and turned into the official SF Entertainment Commission that still meets at City Hall today.

“When it was late-night issues in the neighborhoods, and the conflict during the [Mayor Willie] Brown days between entertainment and neighbors, Terrance was the one along with some others were quite the force in City Hall, forming the SF Late Night Coalition, and the SF Entertainment Commission came out of that too,” Pearson says.

Terrance Alan’s cause of death is unclear, though associates tell us he has recently been in an ICU. We may learn more in time for the many, many remembrances and memorials that San Francisco will hold for him in the weeks to come.

Related: Legal Pot Turns 25: The Sticky Road from Medical Marijuana Raids to a $4 Billion Industry [SFist

Image: Terrance Alan via Facebook

Cannabis activist Richard Lee, who opened two highly successful (and highly illegal) medical marijuana dispensaries in Oakland, founded Oaksterdam University, and bankrolled the recreational cannabis measure, just died at 62.  

If you’ve enjoyed strolling into your local legal cannabis dispensary and buying weed, without the hassle of the old street-level pot dealer runaround, you may not realize how much you have a man named Richard Lee to thank for this privilege. Lee founded a couple of Oakland medical marijuana dispensaries before these were legal (and was raided for doing so), then established the popular Oakland cannabis trade school Oaksterdam, and largely bankrolled the 2010 Prop 19 recreational marijuana ballot initiative with the millions he made selling the sticky-icky.

That 2010 measure was unsuccessful, but it directly led to Washington and Colorado legalization measures two years later, and then the successful 2016 California recreational cannabis ballot measure. For his contributions to paving the path to legalization, Richard Lee was dubbed “the Johnny Appleseed of Pot” by NPR.

But Richard Lee died from cancer complications in a Houston hospital last month, as the New York Times reports. He was 62.

Lee fell into the nascent medical marijuana industry, quite literally. That is, he fell from the scaffolding while setting up gear at an Aerosmith show in New Jersey in 1990 at the age of 28, and was left in a wheelchair for life. He found marijuana helped with his back spasms, and went on to establish Oakland’s Blue Sky Coffeeshop (1999) and Bulldog Coffeeshop (2003), both of which were more cannabis dispensaries than coffee shops.  

Lee then founded the famed Oakland cannabis trade school Oaksterdam University in 2007, and threw about $1.5 million of his own money into Prop 19. This (allegedly) led to the feds raiding Oaksterdam in in 2012, and Lee always felt this was payback for his Prop 19 contributions.

Back in 2012, President Barack Obama, then-Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, and then-state Attorney General all opposed recreational cannabis. Now they all support it, nudged along by activists like Richard Lee.

“Richard’s courage to fight when it wasn’t easy, when it wasn’t safe, and when few others dared, led to a domino effect of global change that we are still witnessing today,” Oaksterdam’s current CEO and executive chancellor Dale Sky Jones said in a statement after his passing. “He didn’t wait for the system to catch up; he worked relentlessly to make it right. His legacy is one of freedom for individuals, freedom for communities, and freedom for families who can now thrive without the shadow of an unjust system hanging over them.”

Oaksterdam University is planning a Richard Lee Celebration of Life and Legacy on Sunday, November 9 from 12 pm to 5 pm at the Chapel of the Flowers in Berkeley. The ceremony will be livestreamed.

Related: Oaksterdam University Allegedly Targeted For Founder's Prop 19 Support [SFist]

Image: OAKLAND, CA - OCTOBER 12: Medical marijuana activist and Oaksterdam University founder Richard Lee speaks during a news conference to bring attention to California State Proposition 19, a measure to legalize marijuana in California on October 12, 2010 in Oakland, California. In less than three weeks voters will go to the polls to decide on Prop 19, the measure to legalize and tax cannabis in the State of California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Santa Rita Jail and other prisons across the state are on high alert that a potent synthetic cannabis substitute is being smuggled into their jails, soaked into completely fake legal documents that the prisoners can just shred up and smoke.  

A very interesting report in today’s Chronicle details a new drug-smuggling surge in California jails and prisons involving synthetic marijuana. At Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, staff told the Chronicle said they’re seizing the fake drug in prisoners’ mail up to three times every week. The Chronicle adds that the fake (but potent) synthetic marijuana has been seized “at more than a dozen jails and prisons across the state in recent months.”

These are probably low estimates on how much of the stuff is getting into jails and prisons. Because the smugglers are using a devious new tactic where they’re soaking fake legal documents in an aerosol or liquid version of the drug, and the prisoners can then just roll up or shred the documents, smoke them like joints, and get high in jail.

The new-ish drug is known as K2 or Spice, though has a number of other street names too. It’s not derived from real cannabis, and according to the DEA, these homebrew concoctions are “synthetic designer drugs that are intended to mimic THC, the main psychoactive ingredient of marijuana.”

And more importantly, the synthetic cannabis is colorless, orderles, and police dogs can’t smell it.

No one has been caught, arrested, or charged in these smugglings, and the prisoners of course have plausible deniability, because they can’t control who’s sending them mail from the outside. Police may not even know who’s sending it, but they’re not saying, because their investigations are ongoing.

The mail comes as labeled as if it were from an attorney’s office, and mimics the appearance of legal documents about the prisoner’s case. And the sender is often using the name of a real attorney. But many attorneys whose names in the return address do not even work in criminal law, and do not represent incarcerated clients.

“It sounds clever and sneaky,” estate planning attorney Joel Harris, whose name was used in the mailing, told the Chronicle. Harris said he was not even aware of this until the Chronicle contacted him. “You’d think the drug suppliers would use the names of criminal defense attorneys” so the mailings appeared more valid.

The sender in most cases is using a Stamps.com account, which allows total anonymity.

And officials suspect most of these drugged-up mailings are originating from the same account. So whenever these investigations crack who’s doing this, we imagine it will be a very interesting story.

That is, if they ever even catch the guys, who are covering their tracks pretty damn well so far.

Related: Woman Arrested at SFO For Allegedly Trying to Board Flight With 151 Pounds of Marijuana [SFist]

Image: Jesstess87 via Wikimedia Commons

A Glendale woman will not be flying high after an arrest at San Francisco International Airport, as she allegedly attempted to board an international flight with 151 pounds of cannabis crammed into her luggage.

Recreational-use cannabis has been legal in California for more than six years now, but there is still a huge illegal marijuana racket across the state. And the underground industry has adjusted to legalization, often shipping and smuggling the weed to other states where cannabis is not legal, because it can fetch a much higher price there. Sometimes people even try to smuggle it on international flights to other countries.

The San Mateo Daily Journal had the news this weekend that a woman was arrested for trying to bring 151 pounds of cannabis onto a flight out of SFO to Frankfurt, Germany. The arrest reportedly happened on Tuesday, May 6.

And the Daily Journal notes that the accused defendant, 34-year-old Diane Bahlawan of Glendale, had “131 separately vacuum-sealed bags of marijuana” that “were allegedly found in the four roller bags she had checked for the flight.”

Does she not know that sometimes SFO baggage handlers steal the marijuna people are trying to smuggle? Because yes that has actually happened.

The SF Chronicle picks up the story today with additional info that security flagged Bahlawan’s luggage because it seemed curiously heavy. Once that baggage was searched, Bahlawan was arrested, with her boarding pass, smartphone, and $960 in cash on her seized.

Bahlawan has been charged with unlawful transport of marijuana and burglary. She’s posted bail, and will appear in court again on June 2.

Related: Two United Airlines Employees Charged With Stealing Copious Amounts of Marijuana From Passenger Baggage [SFist]

Image: close-up dried cannabis flowers (Getty Images)

The official 4/20 party on Hippie Hill is up in smoke for a second year in a row, though nearly 5,000 stoners still attended last year’s supposedly “canceled” party, and also this year’s 4/20 coincides with the Hunky Jesus Contest in Dolores Park.

We did not have high hopes that there would be another Hippie Hill 4/20 celebration that drew 20,000 attendees this year for the annual “marijuana day” festivities, after the official, sanctioned 4/20 was canceled last year. Yet despite last year's supposed cancellation, somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 people still showed up to smoke weed on Hippie Hill, despite SF Rec and Park's effort to replace the event with some curious volleyball-and-kickball tournament. That made for the very amusing split-screen situation seen below, where Hippie Hill was absolutely packed with stoners, while the flatter Robin Williams Meadow area had barely anyone on it.

And it may well be the exact same this year. SF Rec and Parks put out a Thursday press release saying the volleyball-and-kickball tournament is back on for 2025, while KQED reports that the official 2025 Hippie Hill 4/20 celebration is once again canceled.  

This cancellation is not acknowledged on the 4/20 Hippie Hill website, nor on their Instagram account. KQED says the event’s organizer Sounds Bazaar “did not respond to multiple requests for comment.” SFist reached out to them too, and we have not heard anything back either.

But SF Rec and Parks sure made it sound as if the sanctioned 4/20 is currently on life support, at best.  

“ There were conversations with organizers early on to see the feasibility of having the 420 festival, but because of economic challenges within the cannabis industry, organizers couldn’t secure sponsorships,” the department’s communications manager Daniel Montes told KQED. “City budget cuts have also affected Recreation and Park’s ability to cover staffing for the event.”

Still there is no shortage of cannabis-related activities on Sunday, April 20, 2025.

That day is also Easter Sunday this year, which means the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence’s annual Hunky Jesus and Foxy Mary Contest in Dolores Park is on 4/20. Dolores Park has also had a traditional (though smaller) 4:20 smoke-out on April 20, so it dovetails pretty well as a 4/20 destination. We imagine there will be some 4/20 pot jokes cracked onstage, maybe a weed-themed Jesus or two, and a discernible cloud of smoke at the magic 4:20 moment.

Meanwhile also in Golden Gate Park, the obviously cannabis-friendly Crucial Reggae Sunday weekly live show will be going down at the Golden Gate Park Bandshell. (It conveniently starts right at 4:20.) The Sunday, April 20 iteration will feature DJ Guid8nce, DJ Sep, Irie Dole, and Prezident Brown.

There’s also some week-long cannabis celebration calling itself SF Space Walk (April 13-20), which last year called itself SF Weed Week. It’s mostly just a week’s worth of “product drops,” that is, promotional events for new retail items, not really community celebrations. Though it does culminate in a 4/20 Gathering at the Mirus Gallery, which by the looks of last year's promotional photos, did draw a couple hundred people.

And as seen above, last year’s “canceled” 4/20 was still pretty lit! It actually worked quite well, sequestering all of the pot smokers up onto the hill, while the volleyball/kickball party also provided some infrastructure of porta-potties and food trucks.

So you will probably not be disappointed if you still go to Hippie Hill on the high holiday of April 20. And you’ll probably still run into people like this fellow.

Related: Video: SF Hippie Hill 4/20 Draws Thousands of Pot Smokers, Despite Being Officially ‘Canceled’ [SFist]

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist

The Inner Richmond location of the California Street Cannabis Company was hit by burglars in the wee hours Thursday morning, who smashed through the front window with sledgehammers, and got away just as police were arriving.

California Street Cannabis Company opened their second location at Clement Street near Third Avenue in 2021, and it has been burglarized four times since. The latest of these robberies was Thursday morning at about 3:20 am, as KTVU reports that thieves busted through the front windows with sledgehammers in an incident captured by the store’s surveillance video.

That surveillance video is seen in the segment above. The segment also shows that the dispensary was open normal hours on Thursday, as workers install new windows while the store is operating. But the segment also shows five suspects gaining entry by smashing through the windows with sledgehammers and pry bars, and emptying shelves of cannabis.  

The shop’s owner saw this as it was happening in real time, as the security system notified his phone.

"I see that there's five dudes in a car, ransacking the place," owner Duncan Ley told KTVU. "They busted down the front window stole a bunch of product."

Police did arrive on the scene, though just as the burglars were getting away.

SFPD Captain Chris Canning said to the station, "Officers on patrol came upon what ended up being the end of the crime, and responded, attempted to coordinate an arrest of the suspects. Sadly, that wasn't successful."

Ley mentioned that another dispensary on Market Street was also burglarized Wednesday night or Thursday morning, but did not mention which dispensary that was.

Anyone with information on this incident is asked to call the SFPD Tip Line at (415) 575-4444, or Text a Tip to TIP411 and begin the message with “SFPD.” Tipsters can remain anonymous.

Related: Thieves Use a Forklift to Break Into and Rob Oakland Cannabis Business [SFist]

Image: Google Street View

Two Bayview warehouses have been acting as illegal indoor cannabis grows for over a year, according to a new lawsuit from City Attorney David Chiu, after state agents raided and found nearly 6,000 plants at the two facilities.

You may not realize that there are legal and fully compliant cannabis farms right here in San Francisco. These tend to be indoor grows at generic looking warehouses, so ruthless cannabis thieves can’t tell what’s really inside, and these legal facilities tend to be concentrated in the Bayview, Dogpatch, and Potrero Hill warehouse districts.

But a Thursday press release from SF City Attorney David Chiu says that two Bayview warehouses have been acting as illegal indoor cannabis grows for at least a year and a half. And he can be confident of this. A pair of 2023 raids on these properties by the California Department of Cannabis Control (DCC) yielded 5,817 cannabis plants, and 300 pounds of “shake,” the leafier, non-bud parts of the plants popular for use in pre-roll joints.

“With thousands of illegal plants seized, the scale of this operation harms all the legitimate cannabis businesses,” Chiu said in that press release. “Our legal cannabis merchants are following the rules, paying taxes, providing safe products, and supporting our local economy. These property owners assisted their tenants in breaking the rules to make a profit. These illegal grow houses were rife with building code violations and fire safety issues, demonstrating why our cannabis regulatory system is so important."

One of these warehouses is seen above, at 1355 Fitzgerald Avenue. That Google Street View photo was taken in May 2022, so we don’t know whether weed was being grown there at the time. (And honestly, the door to the place is being kept wide open in the photo.) But according to Chiu’s full lawsuit, the place was raided on October 25, 2023, and DCC agents found more than 3,500 plants.  

The owner of the building is PAA Property, whose president and manager is David Chi-Yu Lai. According to the lawsuit, “Lai was interviewed by DCC. He initially claimed to know nothing about the cannabis cultivation at 1355 Fitzgerald Avenue. After he was confronted with surveillance photographs showing him entering the warehouse, he admitted to knowing about the cultivation operation. He also admitted to knowing about the cannabis cultivation at 1510 Wallace Avenue.”

As far as 1510 Wallace Avenue goes, the lawsuit says that on May 17, 2023, “an investigator noted the odor of cannabis while they were standing next to 1510 Wallace Ave. On May 23, 2023, DCC Det. Dennis Prizmich smelled cannabis when the property’s garage door was opened. Det. Prizmich noted an unusual level of security at the property.”

Chiu’s lawsuit is not a criminal complaint, and just demands Lai and other defendants cease these activities, while levying penalties totaling $167,500. But it seems likely that Lai and the other defendants will face criminal charges from either San Francisco law enforcement or the state of California.

Related: Oakland PD Officer Placed On Leave After Giant Illegal Marijuana Grow Found in His Antioch Home [SFist]

Image: Large Indoor Marijuana Commercial Growing Operation With Fans, Greenhouse, Equipment For Growing High Quality Herb. Cannabis Field Growing For Legal Recreational Use in Washington State (Getty Images)

The company that called themselves “the Uber of Weed” is going up in smoke, having blown through $250 million in venture capital but now announcing they’ll likely cease operations on December 31.

Back in 2018, the earliest days of legal, recreational marijuana, three companies stood out as so-called “unicorns” with close to a $1 billion valuation: the dispensary chain MedMen, the grower Flow Kana, and the delivery service Eaze. MedMen was valued at $1.8 billion, but as of this year, nearly all of their stores have closed. Flow Kana was advertising like mad with their $125 million in venture capital, but has since imploded and effectively no longer exists.

And then there’s the popular cannabis delivery service Eaze, once the so-called “Uber of Pot,” which was once valued at $700 million and had $255 million in venture capital from people like Snoop Dogg.

But KRON4 broke the news this weekend that the SF-based Eaze is in the process of closing entirely. The company’s CEO Cory Azzalino told KRON4 that “Eaze’s assets were sold at auction on August 6, 2024,” (trade publication Marijuana Business Daily reported this last week), and the new ownership company has decided to shut the operation down.

“I write to inform you of a difficult decision that Stachs LLC has made,” Azzalino said in an email to employees last week. “Due to the ongoing challenges of the California cannabis market, the company's assets were foreclosed on by our lenders on August 6, 2024. Consequently, Stachs LLC will be winding down operations, with the full closure expected on or around December 31, 2024.”

Azzalino added in  a comment to SFGate that there was some hope they the company could “be reopening under a new corporate structure potentially with new management, if it’s determined the new ownership group wants to keep it open.

SFGate also estimates that some 500 employees would be laid off once Eaze closes down.  

Related: Debt-Ravaged Dispensary Chain MedMen Closing SF Store, They Claim ‘Temporarily’ [SFist]

Image: Eaze via Yelp

Assemblymember Matt Haney’s bill to legalize food and beverage sales inside dispensary lounges has gotten by on the second try, and Amsterdam-style cafes and performance venues could be popping up in your local pot shops next year.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has kind of been on the legal marijuana industry’s shit list for the last week or so. That’s because last Monday, Newsom banned hemp products with THC in them, as hemp is one of those non-intoxicating byproducts of cannabis, and people have been infusing it with THC to skirt regulations. (Cheech and Chong have sued the state over Newsom's ban, because they have money invested in such products.) Then this morning, Newsom also vetoed another bill that would have allowed for cannabis sales at farmers' markets.

So hopes were not terribly high for SF’s own state Assemblymember Matt Haney’s bill to allow for cannabis cafes inside dispensaries that would be allowed to serve non-infused food and beverage. Newsom vetoed a similar measure last year over smoke-free workplace concerns, so Haney added some non-smoker protections to this year’s new version of the bill.

These apparently did the trick. The LA Times reports that Newsom signed the cannabis cafe bill into law Monday, so Amsterdam-style cannabis coffee shops could be coming to dispensaries across the state next year.

“I am signing Assembly Bill 1775, which would allow local jurisdictions to permit certain cannabis retailers to prepare and sell food or drinks that do not contain cannabis, as well as host and sell tickets to live events at their licensed premises,” Newsom said in a Monday signing statement. And in a reference to those smoke-free workplace concerns, Newsom added, “As I stated in my veto message of a similar measure last year, protecting the health and safety of workers is paramount to upholding California's long-standing smoke-free workplace protections.”

Critics say those smoke-free workplace protections are just a fig leaf, and they may have a point. Those “protections” are just a requirement that workplaces provide respiratory masks for employees who choose them, employers have to put up some warning signage, and in the words of the LA Times, are “required to include secondhand smoke in their injury and illness prevention plans required under California labor law.” Though honestly, what are the odds that many cannabis dispensary employees are complete non-smokers, and don't even smoke pot? Seems low odds.

And we must emphasize that there will be no alcohol sales at dispensaries. The new options they’re getting here are just the ability to sell food or beverages for on-site consumption, and to host live events (which many SF cannabis smoking lounges already do).

So how will this work? We really have no idea. While the new law takes effect on January 1, 2025, these cannabis cafes will need local regulations in effect to structure this kind of thing, and it would be several months until any cities has such rules set up. Plus, the law is likely to only allow for food and beverage sales at dispensaries that already have smoking lounges (which they prefer we call “consumption lounges”), as those facilities already have the additional seating and air-filtration infrastructure required to support a little "smoking section" restaurant.

And are dispensaries going to be willing to invest in kitchen equipment, walk-in coolers, and all the other hardware necessary to serve hot food and beverages? Legal retail cannabis is already a lower profit-margin industry than had been anticipated in the “Green Rush” days of the early legalization era.

So this notion that cups of coffee and frittata sandwiches will somehow solve the problems of a financially choking legal marijuana industry might be another example of some industry advocates being a little too high on their own supply.      

Related: Matt Haney Back On It With Trying to Legalize Cannabis Cafes In California [SFist]

Image: pariwat pannium via Unsplash

Last week CNN ran a report detailing that more than 50 very nice houses in Antioch were just giant hidden illegal pot grow operations, with no one living in the houses. Now it turns out one of those homes is owned by an Oakland police officer.

We noted a report by CNN last week exposing how a whole bunch of upscale houses in the Contra Costa County city of Antioch were secretly operating as illegal marijuana grows. The California Department of Cannabis Control (DCC) told CNN that they’d raided “about 50” Antioch houses over the last two years, all of which looked like completely normal homes from the outside, but had no people living in them, and every inch of the place was being used to grow indoor weed.

But there’s a real shocker at the 6:17 mark of the video below, as CNN reporter Kyung Lah points out that one of the illegal pot grow houses was “owned by an Oakland police officer, Samson Liu.” CNN also adds that the raid on the home owned by Officer Liu allegedly contained 80 pounds of illegal marijuana.

Well, that’s going to have people asking questions! KTVU followed up locally, and found that Liu has been placed on administrative leave from the Oakland Police Department. According to KTVU, the raid of Liu’s house was on April 30 and he was placed on leave later that same day.  He has been on paid leave for the four-plus months since.

The OPD would not could not confirm to KTVU whether it was conducting an investigation of Liu, and simply told the station “this is an ongoing personnel matter." CNN published a more extensive report on the Antioch cannabis raids on Saturday, which said that the DCC agents who conducted the bust “referred the matter to the internal affairs division of the Oakland Police Department, but have made no arrests in connection with the contraband.”

We don’t know the exact location of the home. KTVU merely calls it a “two-story, five-bedroom property” in Antioch. CNN adds that at the time of the raid, the house had been “extensively modified for the sole purpose of cultivation: The doors were fortified; the windows were boarded up. A heavy-duty generator sat in the laundry room to maximize power. Silver industrial air ducts snaked in and out of rooms for ventilation.”

The above image is not from the raid on Liu’s home, it is a different home in Contra Costa County that the DCC raided just last week. The agency notes that raid yielded “1,315 pounds of unlicensed cannabis products, including 2,317 plants,” and “an estimated retail value of $2.1 million in seized products.” So this is clearly a problem in Contra Costa County, which has seen nearly 60 homes raided for being illegal marijuana grows in the last two years.

But CNN points out that out of those five dozen raids, “only two people associated with the busts in that city have been arrested and charged; both were given misdemeanors.”

Related: CNN Report Finds Giant, Illegal Marijuana Grows Operating Out of Luxury Homes in Antioch [SFist]

Image: California Department of Cannabis Control via Facebook

Not even the ritziest enclaves of Contra Costa County are immune to having large-scale illicit marijuana grow operations, as a CNN report found three homes on the same street in Antioch were busted for not being homes, but instead enormous indoor pot grows.

Should you have watched CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 on Wednesday night, you saw a report declaring that “family homes in US suburban neighborhoods are being used to grow weed fueling the black market marijuana industry.” And if you watched it, your ears might have perked up when you noticed the story was about homes right here in the Bay Area, in Contra Costa County’s Antioch.

CNN noted that three homes on the very same block were busted for being illegal marijuana grows, and the California Department of Cannabis Control (DCC) estimates they’ve raided “about 50” Antioch homes for being indoor pot grows. All were large, single-family homes priced at around $1 million. In each case, windows were boarded up to control the lighting (and hide the operations’ visibility), plus had amateur-built ventilation systems, electrical generators, and highly suspect daisy chains of extension cords and power strips.

“As long as the house looks nice and the yard’s taken care of, nobody’s going to question what’s going on inside,” Kevin McInerney, commander in the DCC’s enforcement division, told CNN whilst he was literally in the act of busting one of these illicit grow houses.

And as far as crime goes, the scheme makes plenty of sense. The illegal growing of marijuana is just a misdemeanor in most cases, whether it’s one plant or an entire house full of plants.

CNN’s review of property records found that all of the busted homes showed Chinese owners or occupants. “It’s really the Chinese criminal syndicate that’s dominant,” McInerney said to CNN. “It’s a very profitable crop.”

And CNN found a couple of awfully damned curious connections here. In one case, one of the busted alleged grow houses was owned by Oakland police officer Samson Liu. It had 80 pounds of trimmings onsite at the time of the raid. Liu is currently placed on administrative leave.

In addition to that, the three houses busted on the same block had all had their sales brokered by real estate agent Susannah Hwang. Hwang even owned one of the houses when it was raided for having nothing but marijuana growing inside, and $900,000 worth of it at that. Hwang’s attorney told CNN that “it was being rented at the time, and she was not involved in any illegal activity.”

Related: Illegal Marijuana Farmer Found Guilty for Starting the 2020 Dolan Fire [SFist]

Image: Housing development in the green hills of the Bay Area -- Antioch, California -- suburb of San Francisco (Getty Images)

You may soon be able to stock up on cannabis at a discount price at your local farmers’ market, as the state legislature has approved a proposal to let growers sell there directly. Oh, and Matt Haney’s “cannabis cafe” bill has passed too.

California’s nascent legal marijuana industry had high hopes that legal pot would make many people overnight millionaires, but onerous regulations and too much supply have dashed those dreams. Cannabis growers have been particularly hard hit, leaving many longtime pot growers regretting their decision to go legal. So state Senator Gail Pellerin (D-Santa Cruz) hoped to do those struggling growers a solid favor with a proposed state bill that would allow cannabis growers to sell directly to the consumer at farmers’ markets.      

And Marijuana Moment reports that on Tuesday, the state Senate passed that bill overwhelmingly, after it had already cleared the state Assembly in May.

“As a farmer’s daughter, knowing the importance of having that direct relationship with the consumer, this allows cannabis farmers to be able to sell at authorized events—cannabis directly to the sellers—bringing the stock right to the person,” Sen. Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-San Joaquin County) said on the Senate floor before the vote.

The farmers’ markets would need specific state and local permits to sell cannabis, just like at Grass Lands at Outside Lands. But just like at Grass Lands, these farmers’ markets would allow you to consume the cannabis right there on site, though this would all be in a separate, isolated area.  

Yet the offer would only be open to small growers. Per Marijuana Moment, the growers would have to be cultivating less than “one acre of cannabis, 22,000 square feet under a mixed-light tier 1 cultivation license or 5,000 square feet under a mixed-light tier 2 or indoor cultivation license.”

The bill would go into effect January 1, 2026. But only if it gets signed by Governor Gavin Newsom, and there’s no indication yet where Newsom stands on this issue.

Same goes for our local state Assemblymember Matt Haney’s “cannabis cafe” bill, which would allow dispensaries to sell non-infused food and beverage on the premises. That bill also passed the state Senate Tuesday, and it too is headed to Newsom’s desk. Newsom vetoed a very similar bill last year, but Haney added workplace protections for non-smokers in the new version in hopes of getting Newsom’s signature.

Both bills must first head back to the Assembly for re-approval, as the Senate added amendments that would have to be approved. But the Assembly is expected to approve both revised versions.  

Related: There Will Be Legal Marijuana Sales and Smoking at the California State Fair This Year [SFist]

Image: Dried and processed medical marijuana "buds," trimmed and ready for use, legally cured and produced in California. (Getty Images)

Image: BERLIN, GERMANY - JUNE 14: Cannabis plants grow at an exhibitor's stand at the Mary Jane Berlin cannabis and hemp trade fair on June 14, 2024 in Berlin, Germany. Germany legalized cannabis consumption earlier this year. Cannabis production by local cannabis clubs will become legal in July. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)