COUNTY GIVES AREA POT CLUBS MIXED BAG

After years of sneers that selling medical marijuana is a back-alley
operation, Adele Morgan felt vindicated Thursday.

The owner of We Are Hemp on Lewelling Boulevard in Cherryland got an
early Christmas present: an Alameda County Sheriff's Department
letter stating her business has tentative approval for a permit to
sell medical marijuana in unincorporated areas.

"I am glad, and I do feel vindicated in a sense," said Morgan, who
opened her storefront business five years ago, after 29 years as a
nurse and seven years with the county probation department.

"We have been here so long, and have been no trouble," she explained.
"I have a clean, clean background; we cater to older people here."

Thursday was a day of contrasts for the six existing dispensaries
competing for the three prized permits:

. The Garden of Eden on Foothill Boulevard in Cherryland also
received a letter of tentative approval, along with We Are Hemp and
the previously notified Compassionate Collective of Alameda County on
Mission Boulevard in Cherryland.

. A Natural Source on Foothill Boulevard in Ashland got the
equivalent of a literary lump of coal. The sheriff's department cited
the dispensary's proximity -- about a block -- from a Montessori
school as the reason for denying its permit application.

It has 10 days to appeal the denial to a panel of county administrators.

Sheriff's Captain Dale Amaral said location only, and not criminal
problems -- including the shooting death of a suspected robber
outside A Natural Source last August -- was behind the denial.

Amaral said The Health Center and Alameda County Resource Center,
both on East 14th Street in Ashland, may be able to ask county
supervisors to overturn denials by the sheriff's department and
administrative panel as soon as Jan. 10.

Both cannabis clubs were denied permits because they are too close to
schools and an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting hall.