Election 2006: City of Santa Cruz

HOW FAR IS TOO FAR?

Even Many Liberals Not Too High on Progressive Initiatives

Santa Cruz may be attached to the mainland. But in many ways it is an island.

Separated from the Bay Area by mountains and encircled by ocean and
greenery, the city of 56,000 is known for its edgy politics, feisty
independence and uncommon sense of place. But this fall residents are
engaged in a fierce debate over two voter initiatives on the ballot
- -- one to all but legalize pot smoking, the other to create a local
minimum-wage law. And both have some Santa Cruz progressives
wondering if the city is carrying this "island thing" too far.

Even the avowed socialist on the city council worries about the city
pretending that California's drug laws and the laws of economics
don't apply to Santa Cruz.

"It's one thing to be unique and edgy, but I don't want the city to
be seen as totally wacky," veteran Councilman Mike Rotkin said.

The marijuana initiative would require police to make pot arrests
their lowest priority. If the proponents have their way, criminal
arrests and citations for marijuana possession and even sales on
private property would drop off the police radar.

Fear of Pot Measure

Ed Porter, one of the city council's most liberal members, has come
out swinging against the proposal, also opposed by police and drug
treatment agencies.

"Instead of Surf City, we'll become Marijuana City," said Porter, a
teacher at Santa Cruz High. "I just think it's a stupid idea to make
it possible for everyone in town to become stoners."

Peter Lewis, an Ohio billionaire who wants to see pot legalized, has
bankrolled the measure, along with similar measures in Santa Monica
and Santa Barbara.

Under the proposal, police could still give priority to crimes
involving the sale and distribution to minors; the sale, cultivation
or use of marijuana on public property; and driving under the
influence of marijuana.

But critics say the proposed law doesn't define the "acceptable"
amount of pot Santa Cruzans can sell out of their homes. "Almost
every back yard in the city could become a safe house for growing and
selling marijuana," City Attorney John Barisone said.

"If a police officer was walking down Pacific Avenue and saw someone
selling marijuana in a private parking lot while he could have been
apprehending a jaywalker a half a block away, he'd technically be
violating the ordinance if he went after the drug dealer," Barisone added.

Proponents say the lawyers and cops are overreacting and that they'd
prefer to "tax and regulate" the sale of legal marijuana, but that
state and federal laws prevent that from happening.

"We can't change the law, but we can make it so the police aren't
coming into a private setting and arresting people," said Andrea
Tischler, co-owner of the nation's first "bed, bud and breakfast
inn." Located in downtown Santa Cruz, the 6-year-old Compassion
Flower Inn welcomes guests who smoke marijuana for medical purposes.

Kate Horner, a 24-year-old Santa Cruz resident who is running the
Measure K campaign, said a similar law in Seattle has driven down
marijuana arrests while not resulting in any measurable increase in
pot smoking.

Santa Cruz police scoff at the notion that pot use can be accurately
measured. And they're scratching their heads about why the measure is
needed in the first place since under California law marijuana
possession is dealt with as harshly as a traffic ticket. Police are
also outraged by a provision that would make them document and defend
the 200 or so marijuana citations they hand out each year before an
"oversight committee."

"It's nothing more than a mechanism for harassment of police," Lt.
Steve Clark said. "It's aimed at stopping us from doing what we're
sworn to do."

Police also feel the law would prevent them from issuing marijuana
citations as a tool to discourage loitering and other behavior that
threatens public safety.

"Can't people see the incongruence of a city with such a large drug
and alcohol problem making it easier for people to use drugs?" Clark
said. "This would just send a message that it's OK for our kids to do drugs."

Calls Pot Busts Wasteful

But Horner argued that arresting and citing otherwise law-abiding
citizens for smoking pot is a waste of police resources and clogs the
criminal justice system.

Tischler urges the police to lighten up.

"This is Santa Cruz," she said with a laugh. "We're not on this planet."

Neal Coonerty, the Santa Cruz County supervisor-elect who a few years
ago led the "Keep Santa Cruz Weird" bumper sticker campaign, agrees
with that notion. And he backs the pot initiative.

But the owner of Bookshop Santa Cruz is among a group of left-leaning
business leaders who dismiss the proposed minimum-wage law as
"Cruzenomics" and a threat to Santa Cruz's small businesses.

Other progressives, however, argue that it's time for Santa Cruzans
to stand up for higher wages.

"There's a million reasons people are making up not to pass our own
minimum-wage law, but we should do it simply because it's the decent
thing to do," said Nora Hochman, leader of the campaign to raise the
minimum to $9.25 an hour beginning in January. That translates to
$19,240 a year at 40 hours a week.

Poverty Wages

For a family of four, Hochman said, that's still below the federal
poverty line. Even for a single person, she said, getting by on that
wage could be difficult since Santa Cruz is one of the least
affordable places to live in the country.

If Measure G passes, Santa Cruz's minimum wage would be 23 percent
higher than California's minimum, which rises to $7.50 in January.
Santa Cruz workers would also get cost-of-living wage increases.

Most locally owned businesses have pummeled the proposal, saying it
will make it harder for them to compete against chain stores such as
Longs Drugs and Borders Books, which can spread out their increased
costs over a region or a nation. Only a handful of Santa Cruz
businesses -- including the Saturn Cafe, famous for its "Impeach Bush
Fries"-- have endorsed the plan.

Most Santa Cruz business people say they would support raising
California's minimum wage to $9.25 an hour. But they say that
creating an "island economy" would force marginal businesses to close
and make others raise prices.

A handful of cities around the country -- mostly big cities such as
San Francisco and Washington, D.C. -- have their own minimum-wage
laws. "But this is an instantaneous and very large increase in just
one small city," said Cindy Geise of Ristorante Avanti. "That's a
really flawed concept."

Restaurants, she said, stand to suffer more than other businesses.
Geise said the new law "would cost me about $35,000 in wages the
first year and all of that would go to the servers that already make
25-plus an hour" when tips are included.

But Arsineh Vartanian of Santa Cruz, a 26-year-old waitress who earns
minimum wage plus tips, objects to the notion that servers are
rolling in dough.

"Businesses are always threatened and always fearful that they're
going to go under," said Vartanian, who preferred not to say where
she waits tables. "But somehow it never happens." Contact Ken
McLaughlin at kmclaughlin@mercurynews.com or (831) 423-3115.

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