ONLY THE NAME HAS CHANGED AT S.F. POT CLUB

Peron Stays as Consultant

Dennis Peron was trying very hard yesterday not to be in charge of the new
marijuana club on Market Street.

He was not the director, he kept announcing, and never mind that he was
spending a lot of time in the director's office, sort of directing, with
his feet on the desk, his coffee on the desk and his dog under the desk.

``It's like the grand opening of a new restaurant,'' said Peron.
``Restaurants change their names all the time. But the cuisine is
similar.''

The cuisine at the new Cannabis Healing Center, which opened yesterday, is
very much the same as the cuisine at the old Cannabis Cultivators Club,
which closed Monday. The cuisine comes in plastic bags for $20 or so, and
portions are small, like the cuisine in many fine restaurants.

On Monday, sheriff's deputies ``evicted'' the club from the three- story
building at 1444 Market Street, after a judge ordered the operation closed.
Yesterday, the building reopened with a new sign in front -- and a very
nice 79-year-old woman sitting in Peron's chair in the director's office.

The woman, Hazel Rodgers, said she was in charge. For most of the morning,
Peron was not far from her side, and neither was his small white dog,
Pinky.

``Hazel is the good vibe monitor,'' said Peron, ``and I'm here, breaking
her in. The law says I may consult, so I'm consulting.''

``Dennis,'' said Rodgers, sweetly, ``is showing me where all the skeletons
are.''

The only change between the old and new clubs, said Peron, was the decision
to stop selling marijuana to 500 or so caregivers of users too ill to visit
the club themselves.

It was the sale to nonpatients that Attorney General Dan Lungren had cited
when he began the legal action that led to shutting the club. The change in
management did little to satisfy Lungren, whose office released a statement
yesterday saying the club is still breaking the law.

DIRECTOR SAMPLES

Rodgers, herself a club member who smokes marijuana to relieve her
glaucoma, spent part of the morning sampling a new shipment of pot to find
out if it was everything it was supposed to be.

``Let's have a smell,'' said Rodgers, with a twinkle.

She sniffed the baggie, she held it up to the light, she commented
knowledgeably on texture and aroma. She lit up and partook.

``Very good,'' she said and graciously offered some to a reporter, who declined.

Rodgers, a former administrator for the carpenters union, said she had
agreed to become director to help the club in its hour of peril, and she
was determined to be the very best 79-year-old director of a marijuana club
that she could be.

``I've got to be careful,'' she said. ``I still could be arrested if I
don't watch my step. I'm counting on them not to arrest a woman of my age,
you know, because of the publicity.''

By all appearances it was a typical morning at the club, with lots of talk
by staff members about which of the dozens of people in front of the
building might be an undercover narcotics cop. A man with a red parrot on
his shoulder was walking around, and Woodstock-vintage tunes were thumping.

SALES AND CAMPAIGNING

Upstairs, at the sales counter, baggies were selling for $5 to $65, and
there were no complaints. Small announcements were taped all over,
declaring the new incarnation of the club to be an ``important occasion in
our constant struggle for freedom.''

Staff members who were not distributing marijuana were distributing
Peron-for-governor buttons.

Peron, a former restaurateur and Vietnam War veteran, founded the club four
years ago and helped lead the successful 1996 statewide campaign to pass
the medicinal marijuana law. He is currently running for governor as a
Republican -- against Lungren.

Throughout the day, authorities laid low. San Francisco Sheriff Mike
Hennessey said that he was all through evicting for now and that he would
not move against the new club.

``I support the medicinal marijuana law in the state of California, and it
does seem this is an attempt to thwart that law,'' Hennessey told a
reporter. ``I think most people in this city want to keep that law carried
out.''

)1998 San Francisco Chronicle