UPDATE, JUNE 17: Seems like the back-and-forth legal wrangling between the city of Dana Point and a pair of marijuana collectives is never going to end. The latest news: According to a recent OC Register story, Holistic Health, one of three Dana Point dispensaries that have been ordered to pay millions in fines for violating the city's municipal code, has filed a $30-million lawsuit against the city.
Holistic Health's founder Garrison Williams told the Register that Dana Point violated his right to due process when it closed his operation in January without ever having inspected the club. Another Dana Point collective that has been hit with massive fines, Beach Cities Collective, has already filed a $20-million suit against the city and has also appealed the city's victorious lawsuit, which resulted in roughly $7 million in fines against the clubs. However, the Reg reports, the third collective sued by the city, The Point Alternative Care, which has also closed, and been ordered to pay $1.9 million in fines, has not filed an appeal.
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ORIGINAL POST, JUNE 1, 12:06 PM: My earlier blog post about Dana Point city officials trying to sue the hell out of all the medical marijuana collectives in their midst
has already been updated one too many times, so this unfortunate news
gets its very own, brand new post: the pot-hating city just won yet
another round in its idiotic and expensive legal war on weed.
According to the Orange County Register, the Honorable David Chaffee just handed the city a $1.36 million judgment against Holistic Health and its operator, Garrison Williams,
for violating the city's health and safety code. Two other judges have
already made similar rulings against other Dana Point dispensaries. Back
in March, Beach Cities Collective was ordered to pay $2.4 million and in April, The Point Alternative Care got hit with $1.9 million in penalties.
So far, though, Dana Point hasn't received a single penny from any of
the clubs, despite having wasted $400,000 in legal bills alone. And they
say smoking too much weed makes you stupid.
Award-winning investigative journalist Nick Schou is Editor of OC Weekly. He is the author of Kill the Messenger: How the CIA’s Crack Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb (Nation Books 2006), which provided the basis for the 2014 Focus Features release starring Jeremy Renner and the L.A. Times-bestseller Orange Sunshine: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love’s Quest to bring Peace, Love and Acid to the World, (Thomas Dunne 2009). He is also the author of The Weed Runners (2013) and Spooked: How the CIA Manipulates the Media and Hoodwinks Hollywood (2016).