CODE WORKERS CITE POT COLLECTIVE

Shasta County's only marijuana collective outside a city's borders
has been cited again by building code officials, the latest in more
than a year of legal wrangling between county officials and the
Medicine Man Spiritual Center in Burney.

On Wednesday, Shasta County Building Division officials issued a
citation to Christopher Dale Staffin, the self-proclaimed "first
officer" of the cannabis dispensary, on suspicion of operating
without a use permit, a nonpermitted change of occupancy and being a
public nuisance.

Staffin on Thursday said he has spoken with his attorney and he's
planning to fight the citation.

He said he has been operating a marijuana nursery on site, which is
legal and doesn't require the extensive permitting needed to stay open.

He says county officials are being "prejudicial" to him because he
offers medical marijuana. He said they are trying to force him to
classify his business as a cannabis club, which would require
substantially more permits and thousands of dollars in fees.

He said he represents some 20,000 medical marijuana patients in the
county's unincorporated area.

"Where in America does it say a patient needs to be a member of a
club to get safe access to their medicine?" he asked.

Brett Hale, the building division's manager, said Staffin has been
operating his dispensary without a proper use permit for some time.

He notes that this summer a judge ruled that Staffin was guilty of
operating without a use permit.

In early April, Shasta County's Board of Supervisors unanimously
approved a moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries. Staffin's
collective was in place before the moratorium was in place, but
county officials say he is required to have a use permit to run what
they claim is a cannabis club.

They've cited him twice.

Staffin and building owner Jeffery Finney were cited April 20. In
August, retired Sutter County Superior Court Judge Robert Damron, who
occasionally tries cases in Shasta County, ruled that Staffin was
guilty of not having proper permits.

He was acquitted of being a public nuisance, Shasta County Superior
Court records show. During the same hearing, Damron acquitted Staffin
of all charges for an earlier citation building officials issued last December.

After he was cited the second time, Staffin responded in May by
filing a request with the court seeking a restraining order on county
building inspectors. He claimed they were harassing him.

Staffin said in court documents that Hale and building inspector
Jerry Bellinger threatened to run Medicine Man out of business "just
like we ran the rogue (motorcycle) clubs out of Shasta County."

In court documents fighting the restraining order, the county's
employees denied making the statements, and they said they were
merely doing their jobs enforcing the county's building code laws.

Last month Court Commissioner Gary Gibson agreed that the county
officials didn't do anything inappropriate. He denied Staffin's
restraining order request.

Gibson wrote in his ruling that Staffin filed the restraining order
"to prevent the execution and enforcement of a public statute."