SHERIFF FORCED TO SHUT DOWN CANNABIS CLUB HE SUPPORTS

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A reluctant sheriff shut down San Francisco's largest
medical marijuana club yesterday as organizers waited in the wings to
reopen under another name.

San Francisco Sheriff Mike Hennessey served Cannabis Cultivators Club
founder Dennis Peron with an order closing the operation shortly after 1
p.m. and ordered the building vacated. Peron and his followers cooperated
peacefully.

Hennessey said he disagrees with the court order initiated by state
Attorney General Dan Lungren, whom Peron is opposing in a David vs. Goliath
campaign in the Republican gubernatorial primary.

"I support the medicinal marijuana law in the state of California, and it
does seem this is an attempt to thwart that law," Hennessey said.

The sheriff also said he would not move against the club's successor
agency, the Cannabis Healing Center, which was opening under a new director
at the same site.

"That has nothing to do with this court order," Hennessey said.

Peron started the club four years ago and was a prime mover behind the
successful 1996 drive for the state's medicinal marijuana initiative.

The court order to close the club was based on pot sales to providers
rather than directly to patients. Peron called the issue a technicality
that Lungren had seized on, but Peron took responsibility for the error.

The new Cannabis Healing Center is run by Hazel Rodgers and is posted with
notices that pot can be sold only to patients, and not care givers.

Copyright 1998 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.