FAIRFAX TURF WAR OVER MEDICAL POT

The founding director of Marin's only sanctioned medical marijuana
dispensary says the spokesman for a new medical marijuana delivery
service is out to get her - but he says she is just blowing smoke.
Lynnette Shaw, director of the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana,
has obtained a temporary restraining order against Jeffrey Rifkind,
the spokesman for We Deliver, a new medical marijuana delivery
service that began operating in Marin earlier this month.

Rifkind said he was hired by a Marin couple who are managing the
delivery business to help market it. He said he receives no money
from sales. Rifkind said the couple want to remain anonymous because
they're fearful of reprisals from the federal government.

Rifkind and Shaw are hardly strangers. Rifkind has served as a broker
between Shaw's Marin Alliance and the company that processes its
customers' credit card payments for a decade.

Shaw claims that Rifkind began making threatening phone calls to her
and the staff of her Fairfax dispensary after an article appeared in
the Marin Independent Journal on Feb. 5 publicizing the launch of the
delivery service.

In documents filed with the court, Shaw states that Rifkind shouted
such phrases as, "I'm going to get you.

I'm going to take you down. I'm launching World War Three against the
club." Shaw said she fears for her life and has hired a bodyguard.
She has asked the court to make Rifkind pay her $500 to cover the
guard's salary.

"This is all utter fabrication by Lynnette," Rifkind said. "She
doesn't like competition."

When Rifkind visited the Marin Alliance storefront on Feb. 7, Shaw
refused him entry and called the Fairfax police to have him removed
from the premises. Shaw said Rifkind parked his BMW "with an overly
large advertising sign reading, 'Medical Marijuana Delivery'" in the
Marin Alliance's parking lot and "tried to sell marijuana out of his
car to my incoming clientele."

Shaw said Rifkind has attempted to "buy into my business" several
times over the years. The Marin Alliance has 4,800 members and
dispenses to about 800 Marin residents each month. Shaw, whose pot
clinic logs about $1 million in annual marijuana sales, declined to
disclose her salary, or the salaries paid staff members.

The Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, situated next door to a
Little League field in Fairfax, is the only sanctioned medical
marijuana dispensary in Marin. When clubs tried to open in other
Marin cities, local officials moved swiftly to ban them.

Rifkind said he visited the Marin Alliance's office on Feb. 7 to
notify Shaw that the cost of her credit card redemptions was about to
be raised. Rifkind said she had been refusing to take his calls.
Rifkind vehemently denies attempting to sell marijuana out of his car.

"If this statement is not retracted entirely, I may have no choice
but to bring an action against her for slander and or libel," Rifkind
wrote in a court filing.

As for trying to buy the club, Rifkind said he once made an offer on
behalf of his brother, Stephen Rifkind, a lawyer who is representing
him in Shaw's civil action. The court has granted a temporary
restraining order requiring Rifkind to stay away from Shaw until a
court hearing can be held to assess the merits of her request. A
medical condition kept Rifkind from attending a Feb. 20 hearing date.
The hearing is now scheduled for 9 a.m. March 26.

Shaw's attorney, Fairfax Councilman Larry Bragman, said he helped
Shaw with her business permit several years ago. Bragman said it was
Shaw, not he, who subpoenaed Fairfax police Officer Hector Rodriguez
last week to testify at her hearing. Bragman said he hasn't discussed
the merits of the case with Rodriguez, who was called to evict
Rifkind from the Fairfax dispensary.

"I met him briefly in court - that was the extent of it," Bragman said.

This is not the first time Shaw has sought a restraining order
against competitors in the medical marijuana field. In 1997, she
asked the court to protect her from Les and Darice McKay, a Point
Reyes couple who sought unsuccessfully to open their own medical
marijuana dispensary in Marin.

"This is her mode of operation," McKay said after hearing of her feud
with Rifkind.

At the time, Shaw declared that the McKays "were threatening to kill
me, rub me out and take over the club."