Dispensary Owners Arrested

Who did they kill to have such a high bail? This is crazy!

They would have been better off being child molesters, bail would have been set at $250,000.

Now that everyone is arrested they can finally inform us of the details of the "laundering" scheme. I bet someone bought a piece of pizza for lunch. If that's the case, then we have gross miscarriage of justice on our hands here. The police are being used to fulfill a third party's political agenda I strongly suspect.

I'm inclined to believe the cops on this one. Greed ruins more businesses than anything else I suspect. The bail was set high because of the money involved. Rather than pay their taxes they decided to cheat. Or maybe they knew they were selling more than allowed and tried to hide the income into the cash receipts of the pizza joint. Very unsophisticated but no different than the crooks on wallstreet or the banking mortgage biz.

In any case financial scofflaws should have the book thrown at them because the rest of us play by rules and pay our taxes...right?

The crooks on Wall St. and the banking mortgage biz have ruined more lives than marijuana has or ever will.

Alleged financial misdoing, there hasn't even been any explanation officially. And why has Josh Lynn been put on administrative leave?

"The bail was set high because of the money involved."

sa1 - do you know how much money was involved? Probably not I'm assuming. Regardless though, how do you account for the bail set for Mr. Braun - who is being charged only with "possession and sale of marijuana"?

The 8th Amendment to the Constitution prohibits "excessive bail." A $1 million bail for possession and sale of marijuana - or any drug for that matter - is a textbook example of an 8th Amendment violation.

Furthermore, the other individuals arrested during the raid on the same exact charge as Mr. Braun all have bail set at $50,000 (see http://www.independent.com/news/2010/...).

I look forward to an explanation of this gross discrepancy and blatant Constitutional violation.

Oh, by the way, did SB's "finest" ever get around to catching those involved in the two armed robberies that occured over the weekend (Motel 6 in Carp and Domino's Pizza on the Mesa)?

"sa1 - do you know how much money was involved?"

Enough to engender a 1 million $ bail...not for possension of Mary Jane, for money laundering (read closely, there will be a test afterwards).

Could also be that due to the proprieters supply contacts, the owners may have been "enticed" into laundering money unrelated to either business.

Al Capone died in jail because he couldn't keep the books straight either...Oh, the tangled web we weave...

I'm guessing this is completely politically motivated. However, worst case scenario is they grew some extra bud and sold it on the side. Should that even be a crime? Our founding fathers all grew hemp. Some of the first American colonies had laws that required farmers grow hemp. Abraham Lincoln's favorite thing to do was sit on his porch, smoke some sweet hemp and play his harmonica. Anybody who is for the prohibition of cannabis doesn't respect the individual rights of others and is often misinformed regarding the qualities of this safe and often helpful plant.

The people who are really against these dispensaries selling on the side, which I am also against mainly to encourage a good image in the community, well, IF there is evidence that this is in fact happening then these people should at least be grateful that they are taking away some of the business from the Mexican cartels that use the profits to buy weapons to harm our border patrol agents and law enforcement. They should at least consider what alcohol prohibition did to our country, the crime it caused and help shift their beliefs away from this tyrannical approach.

When you are laundering money you stole from a rival gang and had to commit several murders to get your hands on it is quite different from laundering money used to buy a plant that comes out of the ground and isn't even toxic enough to kill someone in high concentrations. I hardly see that as a 'crime'.

Loony et al:

It's not about the pot...It's about lieing, cheating, stealing, acting dishoronably and disrespectfully. It's about endangering a nacent business structure, by acting irresponsibly.

You can thank the owners of all those non-conforming shops for the current public backlash. I have no sympathy for them. These are the jerks that can't follow directions. The get rich quick because selling dope is easy crowd. "It's just pot, we can break all the rules cuz we're stoner outlaws...How cool are we?"

We shouldn't want them running real businesses anyway.

Mature smart adults will eventually win out, of that I'm sure. Then maybe we can actually have a low key cafe to hang and smoke, just like Amsterdam. The Dutch are not exactly poor or anarchists. Seems to work for them.

Al Capone didn't die in jail, he actually died in his big fancy mansion in Florida after doing his time.

The charges are slightly different in this case but the protocol seems to be the same. Four or more dispensaries were raided earlier this year in February with members being charged with "financial crimes" yet some of those dispensaries reopened within weeks and are now operating legally according to the city of SB.

In my opinion this seems to be a "guess and check" raiding crusade which violates the civil rights of those being arrested and incarcerated. I cannot say for certain who is benefiting from the disparagement of SB collectives but I can say who is being most affected and those are the critically or terminally ill patients who are losing stable, safe and dignified access to their much needed medications.

How safe or dignified could a sick patient possibly feel in their collective knowing that the door could be kicked in at any time leaving them subject to questioning and even arrest? Guess we are leaving our sick and elderly to take their chances on the street.
Perhaps they could find some medical grade cannabis at one of our high schools since, according to law enforcement, that's where it ends up. Oh wait, I forgot that at any high school, since the 1970's, you've been able to buy a sack of cheap herb without a doctor's recommendation or proof of age/identification.

The bail is excessive; that is obvious. These are non-violent crimes that they're being accused of. It seems highly unlikely that either of them could post bond. One million each??? They should be allowed to return to their families while everything's being sorted out. It's laughable to compare these two to Al Capone. Seriously?

Since Pizza Guru is mentioned in all of this, does this give new meaning to the term "Pizza Joint"?

YUMMY Pizza Joint (Trademark!)

A pizza flavored joint!
Great for the munchies!
No Cal alternative for couch potatoes...

BC, we'll be thousandaires!

sounds like the work of officer Buetel..

al capone died of std's he was afraid to see a doctor
or take a shot
so the message here is wear a condom
Now back to the issue
That was a nice place to get your meds
to bad for them
Hope all turns out well for the crew at HortiPharm
This has political bs written all over it
What a shame

This is just messed-at the hearing today, they did not lower the bail for Josh or Daley. I guess the should have killed someone instead of being punished for helping others. It is a shame that an ex employee made up such bull crap

whatever happened to the local law that was passed that made enforcing marijuana laws the lowest priority? a $1 million dollar bail? how much pull does the guy from Texas have these days? Did he buy the police department too?

All things considered, this looks like a paradigm case of the "authorities" setting out to make bad press for marijuana and for the dispensaries. Fortunately, no police were harmed in this very dangerous operation (were they in full metal gear?). Well, no doubt a few of them are putting themselves at grave health risk by enjoying free buds that somehow ended up in their pockets.

Money laundering charges? Why was a raid even needed? Bail of $1 million??!! Holy crap!

There are two guys working and living in Santa Barbara today who were both punished by the FTC for ripping people off, fraud and scamming people online - they were each fined $19.7 million, but they didn't even have to post bail! And they went back into business before they even plead guilty!

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/11/commer...

Now we have 2 people running a small local business who may have skimmed from a few thousand to maybe tens of thousands of dollars from their own business, and they are shut down, everyone they know is arrested, raids all over the county, front page new stories and now $1 million bail.

Hello politics! Whoever in the DA's office or police dept figured this was a good way to spend tax payer money