IODINE SALE PROSECUTION STINGS FEED STORE TRIO

LANCASTER - Ramona Beck says she went more than 61 years without ever
getting a single ticket, not even a traffic citation.

That changed about a year ago when more than a dozen sheriff's
deputies descended on Granicy's Valleywide Feed Store, owned by Beck's
sister and brother-in-law.

Beck went to jail that night, as did her two sisters, Armitta Granicy,
62, and Dorothy Manning, 67.

Beck, now 62, said the deputies took the trio's shoes and glasses. She
and her sisters were signing things they couldn't really see, Beck
said, because their glasses had been taken away.

The three sat in jail for about four hours that night, singing church
hymns to pass the time.

According to sheriff's investigators, the trio, along with Armitta's
64-year-old husband, Robert Granicy, served as spokes in the giant
wheel of methamphetamine production in the Antelope Valley.

Specifically, they were carelessly ignoring a law regulating the sale
of iodine in its crystalline form, which can be used to make speed,
according to law enforcement.

Armitta Granicy, called "Mim" by those who know her, points out that
the chemical is also used to treat and prevent hoof disease, as an
antiseptic and to purify water in rural wells. Even woodworkers
sometimes use it to give their products a rustic, aged look, she said.

The law they are accused of breaking went into effect in January 1999,
but the four senior citizens were the first to face prosecution for
allegedly breaking it.

When someone buys iodine crystals, the law requires storekeepers to
check identification, write down the person's license plate number,
ask the person what the iodine is going to be used for and log a
receipt for the transaction. The law also stipulates that a person
cannot buy more than eight ounces of the product during any 30-day
period.

According to the Sheriff's Department, the store sold 16,836 ounces -
more than 1,000 pounds - of iodine from January 1999 until the day
they were arrested. The store had enough receipts to cover 2,704
ounces worth of sales, according to a sheriff's document.

They were charged with violating the law - a misdemeanor - and faced
up to a year in jail if convicted.

Armitta Granicy said the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office
has made several plea bargain offers that up until now were absolutely
unacceptable. The latest offer is getting consideration, however,
because prosecutors would drop all charges against the foursome if
they agree not to sell crystal iodine for two years and pay a fine of
$500.

They are due back Tuesday in Antelope Superior Court, where they will
either accept the prosecution's offer or proceed toward trial.

Since they pleaded not guilty to the charges shortly after their
arrests, the four have said they would never admit any wrongdoing.

Since their arrests, Armitta Granicy said the terms of every plea
bargain offered by prosecutors became better and better, but never
good enough to consider.

"This is the first time they've offered to totally drop the charges,"
Armitta Granicy said.

Deputy District Attorney Robert Sherwood said Friday he could not
comment on the case without permission from the DA's media
spokeswoman, who was not in her office. Sherwood also would not
confirm any plea offer.

Armitta says she doubts any of the iodine purchases at her store were
made to cook meth. But members of the North County Clandestine
Methamphetamine Lab Task Force see things differently.

"Several of our major 'cooks' have told us, reluctantly, that
Granicy's is a source for iodine because they don't ask for ID like
the other places do," sheriff's Sgt. Tony Hollins said the day after
the arrests.

As the three women - all of them grandmothers - sat around a
1,000-piece puzzle on a table in the homey store on 20th Street East
in Lancaster on Friday, Armitta says she believes the arrests and
probably the hours they spent in jail are the result of her criticism
of law enforcement.

"I told him (a deputy) it was a bad law and that they weren't doing
their job," Armitta Granicy said Friday.

Armitta says the law would force them to intrude on the customers'
privacy and sometimes leave the store unattended while they go outside
to check license plate numbers. She says the police need to stop drug
production on their own instead of requiring unwilling storekeepers to
become soldiers in the war on drugs.

The Granicy store looks and sounds nothing like a place where a troop
of armed law enforcement officers would swoop down for a drug-related
arrest.

The walls are covered with antiques: cameras, old bottles, housewares
and so forth. Country music - the traditional kind - crackles from a
33 rpm album on a record player. Outside the store, old farm equipment
dots the grounds to which Robert Granicy moved with his family in
1943, when he was 6.

The compound includes a small private zoo that Scout troops visit to
earn merit badges.

But law enforcement officers have said they were frequent visitors to
the ranch too - and they say the sisters and Robert Granicy repeatedly
ignored requests to comply with the law.

According to Hollins' previous statements, the shopkeepers were
arrested because they had been warned at least three times about the
law and never heeded the warnings.

But some legal experts believe that the Sheriff's Department
overstepped its bounds when the three women were thrown in jail.

During an episode of CNN's "Burden of Proof" aired in September 2000,
former federal prosecutor Solomon Wisenberg called the prosecution "
the epitome of overkill."

"They know there's absolutely no way these ladies are a threat to flee
the jurisdiction and they are in jail for four hours," Wisenberg said
on the show. "So, both in the way it was carried out and the actual
prosecution, I think it is overkill."

So do the three sisters. Beck sometimes becomes tearful as she talks
about it. Manning, the quietest of the sisters - who moved from
Missouri to California before they finished high school - seldom looks
up from her puzzle. When she does, she usually directs a sharp barb at
the authorities who are prosecuting her, such as "They expected three
old women just to cave in."

Armitta Granicy says she is in charge of making the final decision on
the latest plea bargain. Technically, the offer is not a plea bargain
because all charges would be dropped and the defendants would not be
pleading to anything.

Armitta said she wants her sisters - particularly the more emotional
Ramona Beck - to stop suffering the stress of having to go to court.

But today, Sunday and Monday, she will be weighing that benefit
against the two-year ban on selling iodine. Agreeing to the moratorium
will give the sheriff's deputies a reason to come back to the store on
a regular basis, Armitta said. She doesn't want them around.

"I'm afraid of them, I don't trust them and I don't want anything to
do with them," she said.