TEHAMA HERBAL COLLECTIVE OWNERS FIGHT CITY HALL

CORNING - The attorney for Tehama Herbal Collective owners Ken and
Kathy Prather intends to fight a medical marijuana storefront ban by
arguing the city's policy is unconstitutional.

The Prathers, cited numerous times for operating without a use permit
and operating a medical marijuana collective despite a temporary city
ban on medical marijuana cooperatives and collectives, intend on
continuing the struggle.

"We're just going to keep fighting because we believe what we're
doing is right," said Megan Prather, the 22-year-old daughter of the
Prathers.

Attorney Bill Panzer said he would be submitting the collective's
legal defense Wednesday.

Panzer said the defense would revolve around the difference between
the collective and operations that sell marijuana for profit.

Suits brought against medical marijuana operations have succeeded
because those operations were explicitly commercial and never
supposed to be enabled by Prop. 215, he said.

"In a true patient association, not an over-the-counter pot store,
but a patient association, basically, people can get together and do
jointly what they do individually," Panzer said.

By banning associations as a whole, the city is also banning
individual associations, and by extension is infringing on freedom of
expression, he said.

The Oakland attorney likened the idea behind Tehama Herbal Collective
to a household collectively paying for a pizza delivery. If one
person takes cash from the others to pay the delivery man, and then
shares the pizza with others, it does not make him a pizza
restaurant, Panzer said.

"It's kind of a new theory, but also, there are very few dispensaries
that are following this model," he said.

The collective is not listed on the IRS Web site as a recognized
501(c)3 non-profit. Nor is it listed in the California Attorney
General's online database of charities.

But that kind of registration should not be required just because a
group of growers and patients happen to be exchanging medical
marijuana and money, Panzer said.

"There's no sales going on, nobody's selling," he said. "It's an
equitable contribution because what's being cultivated by the
association is for the association. We're talking pure socialism here."

That can be a loaded term, Panzer said. But legally speaking,
commercial medical marijuana groups are exactly what California law
prohibits.

The city, however, does have the right to impose "reasonable time,
place and manner" restrictions, including a requirement for a use
permit, he said.