Tags: license
Judicial McFoolery
September 4th, 2009Link: http://www.EnglewoodStory.com
With sentencing still scheduled for October 9, 2009, for City Councilman McCaslin to have circulated the petition for Judge Atencio's inclusion on the November ballot to the Bartnick's neighbors on Pearl, who were witnesses in the case, seems like a clumsy attempt for payback, and perhaps unethical. If the Englewood judge is elected again, his salary is set over $121,000.00 annually.
On Thursday, August 13, 2009, witnesses for Englewood prosecution foiled the City’s plan to validate the prosecution of boarding house owners. Tricia Langon, Senior Planner, testified that the boarding house amendment “was not returned to Planning and Zoning Commission for their approval, because only major modifications or amendments to the code are returned to the Commission for review.”
Langon also testified that despite the Council’s October 6, 2008 enactment of Ordinance 55, (Boarding Houses) such residences are not businesses, but regular residences. They are not home occupations, and they do not require a license.
The jury was then released early, with the judge and prosecution both recommending the legs of the boarding house ordinance be dismissed in favor of the Bartnicks, and remanded to City Council for review.
Defense immediately went to the throat of the validity of the Ordinance because the Englewood City Charter, Section 58, declares that ALL modifications or amendments to ordinances must revert to Planning and Zoning for study and recommendation, even if the City Council chooses to disregard the recommendation. This is to prevent hasty enactments which often fail the test of justice.
The role of the volunteer citizens’ Planning and Zoning Commission to obtain legal council on proposed zoning codes as to fair housing, equal access and other zoning issues, while civil engineering counsel can ascertain measurable densities and standards. Hasty decisions also circumvent justice simply because they feel like a hard pressure sales job. Only time can allow that kind of intimidation to subside in favor of common sense.
The City circumvented its own Charter many times in the making of new Boarding House provisions, but this was the instance for Defense Council’s request for a directed verdict Thursday afternoon.
Judge Atencio taken aback, hemmed and hawed, and then declined his power and duty to declare summary judgment finding accurately that “what Defense is asking cuts to the heart of the ordinance”. Judge then determined “to allow the jury to decide the facts.”
The electric moment of truth was over. What was left of the material facts is unclear, as Tricia Langon had also admitted to the Bartnicks having pulled proper permits for zoning, but that under the new ordinance, parking areas require paint striping. Striping is an interesting dilemma if, unlike the Bartnicks whose back parking area is paved, the homeowner’s parking is unpaved. Keeping paint on dirt parking might prove to be an expensive year around feat for Englewood residences.
August 14, 2009, the jury, unaware of the previous days’ electricity, was sent to deliberate. They found the Bartnicks guilty of a shell of an Ordinance.
The implications of the Englewood verdict relate not only to setting City precedence for ungrandfathering pre-existing properties into newer codes, but also as to human rights and property ownership, the right to freely associate in the privacy of your own home with whomever you wish. If a neighbor accuses you of being unrelated, so be it.
What City Councilman, Bob McCaslin, was unable to accomplish for his friends, Ron and Robin Noffsinger, through Council legislation,
he turned up in the middle of Pearl Street to celebrate Saturday morning after the verdict was won through judicial McFoolery.
McCaslin's zeal short-sighted his actions linking the Englewood City Council to the very neighbors who had listed their names as witnesses against the so-called business. These neighbors each signed the good-old boy petition for re-election of small town political Judge. This is the same Judge who had refused to recuse himself earlier in the case.
Matthew Crabtree, challenger for the At-Large Council position, stumbled upon the judge's petitions for re-election, thus the confirmation of the City Councilman's conspiracy with the neighbors and the judge, when the clerk gave them to him on September 2, 2009.
The Judge is running unopposed this November. McCaslin is not up for re-election until next year.4 New Medical Marijuana Venders
August 8th, 2009During a study of medical marijuana venders last Monday evening's City Council, information that four existing city approved storefronts on Broadway surfaced. Other proposed venders slated for Englewood storefronts became the hot topic, enough to get a consensus action to establish an Emergency Moratorium.
Douglas Cohn's comment last year to Council regarding real emergencies and false emergencies has come full circle. He spoke during the false emergency moratorium on boarding houses and said, "When I first learned of a City emergency ordinance, I thought that perhaps you were taking notice of the foreclosure crises or that you had found a new way to handle drug houses in Englewood. That wasn't the case, and I have an issue with you folks abusing the City's definition of Emergency and Emergency Ordinances."
Personally? Four alternative drug venders on Broadway certainly seems suspicious, while only a short while ago, other herbal dispensaries were hard fought to win the privilege to exist in the competitive established models of medical fields in Englewood.
I spoke with one man outside of a clinic known as Patients Choice of Colorado. "Mike" was injured riding rodeo. He said the only thing holding his back together is the nuts and bolts. He said he was "dead" in his bed when he revived and that he has seizures from his brain being ripped from his right eye backwards.
Mike said he can tell when people are faking the need for marijuana, and that they could ruin it for all others who use it instead of heavier pills otherwise prescribed. So, Mike is a proponent of City licensure by application.
He believes that an application should sort out whether a dispensary is qualified to prescribe because they would know the answers to certain questions of which strains of the drug help which ailments, and what the various side effects are.
He pulled out his State license to use the drug for medicinal purposes and pointed out that high schoolers and other pleasure seekers could not lawfully obtain marijuana without the license. With a license, all is well. Without the license is quite another story.
Doctors could lose their license, their living, their home and wind up in federal prison, because it is the federal law that takes over when a violation occurs. Buyers would experience the same repercussions. However, Mike's concern is for the building owners who leased their premises to the errant tenants. In that case, the entire building would be caught up and confiscated by the FBI or FTB.
Matthew Crabtree, candidate for Council, and owner of the grassroots website for accessible government, ECOG, also voiced his concern to a group of concerned citizens when he said he had known someone who was a landlord where the tenants were manufacturing fake money out of the garage and paying rent with it. Not only did the landlord lose his rent, but also his rental property was confiscated.
Reality speaks. Either licensed marijuana dispensaries should own their own storefronts should they overstep their licensed privileges, or the City should draft a law to pre-empt the feds confiscation of the storefront belonging to an innocent party.
My hope, because this issue has already been approved by the State of Colorado, is that Council holds a hearing on the merits of the real Emergency as well as the City's own censurer process and what exactly they hope to protect.
Protecting business economy, private property and City taxes are all well within the reach of city government. Perhaps the new contenders for Council in November 2009 elections, will add protections to property within the boundaries of Englewood's Home Rule so that the wrong person doesn't lose his shirt, or his shop, to the feds.
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