GRANDMA, 79, TAKES OVER POT CLUB

Sheriff evicts Dennis Peron, premises reopens as the Cannabis Healing Center

San Francisco is getting a new medical marijuana club with a new director,
a 79-year-old grandmother who smokes pot to treat her glaucoma.

Acting on a court order, San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey shut down
Dennis Peron's Cannabis Cultivators' Club Monday afternoon. But the
landlord of the Market Street building promptly turned the keys over to
Hazel Rodgers, who celebrated her 79th birthday by taking the reins of the
new club, which will be known as the Cannabis Healing Center.

"I'm happy that we could stay open," said Rodgers, who was a longtime
volunteer at Peron's club. "It has been such a wonderful thing for San
Francisco. It's a haven for sick and dying people."

On April 15, Superior Court Judge David Garcia ordered Peron, an associate
named Beth Moore and the Cannabis Cultivators' Club to cease operations at
1444 Market Street, after the club was found to be selling marijuana not
just to sick people but to their "primary caregivers," which is not allowed
under Proposition 215, the 1996 Medical Marijuana Initiative.

Peron is betting that by stepping down and letting a nominally different
club and management take over, he can satisfy the the judge, though he
might not satisfy state Attorney General Dan Lungren, who requested the
injunction and who has made Peron a primary target in his campaign against
cannabis clubs.

"It's the end of an era for me but the beginning of a new era for the new
club," Peron said Monday evening. "I won't have a role -- I can't by court
order -- but now I'm free to run for governor."

Peron is challenging Lungren in the Republican gubernatorial primary.

Hennessey, who has made it clear he opposes the court order, said he and a
group of sheriff's deputies had ordered the building vacated at about 1
p.m. Monday, then gone through the building and seized anything related to
the marijuana trade: about two dozen pot plants, some pot pipes and a large
scale. They then changed the locks and gave the keys to the landlord.

"Mr. Peron and everyone there was extremely cooperative," said Hennessey.
"They couldn't have been nicer. I wish all my evictions went so well."

He said his deputies had not read or seized any medical records or other
documents.

Hennessey said the judge's order did not require him to move against the
club's successor agency, the Cannabis Healing Center.

Rodgers said she would be at the new center every day, but she said she
expected to let the dozens of volunteers do most of the work, as her health
has been fragile. Still, she acknowledged that she had already become a
spokeswoman.

"I've been on TV a lot over the last few years," she said. "The reason I'm
so well known is that most people my age don't use marijuana. My only claim
to fame is being an old lady."

Rodgers added that her children and grandchildren were supportive of her
new endeavor. "I think they worry about me, because that's the way kids
are," she reflected. "But I don't think I'm going to get arrested, because
I'm not going to do anything illegal."

)1998 San Francisco Examiner