Mr. Ruehle said: "I guess in your eyes, I should have known this friendly investment club was a business requiring a business license from the city. Using your rationale, I was a fraud and should have been incarcerated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for failing to get a business license."

You guess incorrectly, sir. People have an affirmative duty to know, understand and abide by the law, it is true, but when the City chooses to make an allegation that a law has been violated, that's all it is, an allegation, and must still be proved before a competent court.

In the experience you described, the City sent you a bill and a citation. Rather than make the choice you did (to receive statements outside of the city) why didn't you simply avail yourself of your right to fight the City's contention in court?

The City had one point of view, you had another. You claim the City "granted (you) no leniency or reasonableness", but if you felt the city was wrong, why didn't you go to court and prove that? Why give the City a pass that way?

For all you know your case could have been the one that required the City to change their approach to organizations like yours. Don't you feel it was your responsibility as a good citizen to see that occurred?

Rather than whine about how the City "granted (you) no leniency or reasonableness" why not have the court require that the City do so? You have a constitutional right to a redress of your grievance.

Why would anyone voluntarily give up such a precious and indispensable right?

Greet, once again, that was not the point of my argument. You so quickly changed your argument that all businesses are fraudulent if they don't aquire a license before opening. Your all encompassing opinion on this matter is BS.

You now try to make this an argument challenging why I "voluntarily gave up such a precious and indispensible right" to spend thousands of dollars in court costs to not have to be forced to pay a business license tax when I could easily avoid such a tax at no cost to me.

The issue was your cop statement that businesses exhibit fraudulent activity if they open without a business license. Does this now mean you believe all resident associations in the city must get a business license? Are those resident committing fraud who are members of these resident associations? Shouldn't the city of Long Beach go after these fraudsters as vigorously as any other crime. C'mon, you are the cop. Give us all your cop version of how these thousands of resident association members should all be charged with a crime.

Mr. Ruehle: You persist in misunderstanding me. If a business violates our licensing laws, they should be closed and the violators prosecuted just as we would with any other law violator that we take action against...we take action to cause the unlawful action to cease and we prosecute the offender. That's how our system of jurisprudence works, sir, at least when it's allowed to.

But "prosecution" is not "conviction". The City must still prove it's case beyond a reasonable doubt. The Green Nurse operators *could* have chosen to fight the closure notice in court and made the City prove it's case but, instead, it chose to close voluntarily. The City could still pursue a prosecution, I suppose, but I don't think it will.

Likewise YOU could have chosen to refuse to pay the bill and forced the City to take you to Court to press your own case but, like the Green Nurse, you chose another way.

*What I believe* is that we must, whenever possible, respect and abide by the rule of law. The City must and so must we. If the City errs in it's enforcement actions then that can and SHOULD be proved in Court, so that the City can be put on judicial notice that it's practices in that area are, themselves, unlawful or, at least, improper.

This is precisely how the rule of law is intended to work for all of us...not just the City and not just you or me.

Ignoring a law we do not like is just that, ignorance.

Declining or refusing to press our rightful case in Court solves no purpose other than to allow an agency or a jurisdiction to continue to impropoerly enforce its laws or to leave bad laws on the books if that is truly the case.

Nothing gets resolved and people like you keep whining.

Yip, thats constructive!

I'm still waiting for you to answer why the city shouldn't go after the resident associations who operate without a business license and to distinguish how non-profit med-pot facilities that operate without a business license are commiting fraud but resident associations aren't. That was the point you continue to ignore. Rather than answer my question, you just chose to change the subject to try to make me look like the bad guy for not challenging the city.

Mr. Ruehle: I'm not trying to make you look like a "bad guy", for any reason whatsoever. Quite frankly I don't think about you much at all other than when attempting to debate and discuss issues with you here or on other sites.

I've answered your question in several ways and many times. The City should actively enforce all of it's business licensing laws, regardless of the type of business. Is a resident association even considered a business? I really have no idea. Do you?

If our laws prove inapplicable to resident associations then that should be properly asserted in Court so that the City can be put on judicial notice of that fact and leave them be.

That is the answer I have given previously and that is the answer that you continue to ignore.

We're arguing on two completely different levels. You're entirely in the weeds and I'm looking at both the bigger picture (the rule of law) as well as how it applies, or should apply, in specific cases (like medpot operations).

I happen to think that we, as good citizens, should challenge government (including the City) often. It's supposed to be representing all of us as far as possible after all. But I think there are ways of challenging that are more effective and others that are less so.

So when you allege that the City has treated you unfairly or unjustly, a reasonable person must ask why you declined to avail yourself of your right to challenge that treatment on an official level. That you chose to not do so was just that, your choice. It doesn't make you a "bad guy", it just makes you, in my opinion, an ineffective whiner.

There you go Greet. Make sure you arrest and run out of town all of those fraudulent resident association members who operate their non-profit businesses registered with the State of California without a business license from the City of Long Beach. After all, like the lady running for school board, we resident participants are all committing fraud per your definition. Go for it. Make it happen police officer Greet. Let's see who gets run out of town you hypocritical whiner lobbyist for DeLong.

Mr. Ruehle: A friend of mine was speaking of you recently, and he posed a very good question: "Who's the bigger fool, the fool or someone who continues to argue with him?"

I think I should be a very great fool indeed to continue to attempt to debate this issue with you in any rational manner.

On this topic at least, it's long past time for me to leave you alone with your foolishness.

Good day, sir!

Sounds like your friend was trying to explain to you that it is you who is the fool. Sounds like he was spot on.

What? I'm just getting warmed up. According to Webster's, a fraud can be defined as an act of deceiving or misrepresenting. If anyone is a fraud, it is you Police Officer Greet, the apologist for anything associated with Councilman DeLong, no matter how deceitful.

JimMcCabe said: "Look John, I give it my best shot. Moritoriums are a separate legal kettle of fish. They are time limited. ---- I am not a resource library. I am disappointed in your tone in this last post."

Thanks for your assertion concerning moratoriums. It didn't occur to me that there was any effective difference, but there you go.

It is not my intent that you serve as a resource library, for me or anyone else, only that you support some of your comments with factual information. For example; if, as you claim "Its illegal for the City to refuse to grant business permits to a whole class prospective LEGAL businesses." Then I must assume that you can support that claim by citing the statutory or case law where that has been established.

My only intent, here, is to argue that in a well-ordered, civil and free society, we must agree to abide by our duly constituted laws and it is my desire to encourage those who would violate the law to seek a better solution.

If that "tone" is somehow objectionable to you, then so be it.

Officer Greet is right. Everybody else is wrong. That is final and so be it.

For at least the 100th time.

Mr: Snider: I've read and understood your comments. Thanks for sharing them.

What a dysfunctional city government wrong beach has! So much of what the city does is embarrassingly ridiculous, and six decades of observing confirms this sad and deteriorating condition.

Goddamn it, I'm just going to read the tele-rag and the grunt-ion.

I don't know how much more I can take.

the place must have been the green nurse collective. i went inside and it's creepy. wigs and stuff on foam heads and jesus christ image all over. ugggh.

on top of that they only had a few strains of crappy cannabis.

the business license they had was posted prominently in the lobby and when i read it, i knew they would be getting shut down. i think the one on 2nd street has the same type of license.

I have no kids and I am stongly against Marijuana along with thousands of members of my church. We will prevail just like we did with that same sex marriage mess.

Tony, the joke will be on you when it turns out God gave us marijuana as a gift because of its wonderful medicinal properties and in reality, the real reason he sends people to hell-- what he considers real evil-- is for practicing intolerance and hatred.

oh, and though it's completely irrelevant--I have kids.

Tony: Please consult with your clergy concerning your faith systems definition of evil.

Evil truly does exist in our community and I have personally dealt with a good deal of that. These medpot operations are not, de facto, evil. Some are simply currently operating outside of local law and others are simply currently operating outside of State and federal law as well.

This does not make them "evil", simply unlawful.

I would also urge you to avoid judging others on moral grounds. There is, unltimately, only one true Judge on such issues, and we all will have to answer to Him one day, rather than to one another.

if god made the world and everything in it, didnt he also create marijuana? i know trick question. the right answer is there is no god.

Very strange because the shuttered dispensary at 1532 E. Broadway is the "Green Nurse Collective" and the operators made no pretense of being anything other than a dispensary. If they were knowingly operating without a legitimate business license, they made no effort to conceal the nature of their operation.

The challenge, of course, being that they apparently failed to disclose the entire truth of their operations on their business license application. Assuming they were serving legitimate medpot patients, this is unfortunate because now they will likely not be allowed to obtain a license and re-open once the City gets it's act together, since they apparently saw fit to commit business license fraud in the first place.

So I ask you, how is their particular approach to operating in Long Beach working out for them now? How has their alleged deceit better served any true patients in need now that this business has seen fit to close its doors?

You've answered your own questions. I'm not defending the operators tactics. If the city does not issue licenses for these dispensaries, I'm puzzled as to why they flagrantly advertise their actual services as if they are legitimately licensed businesses like restaurants or retail stores.

There is another dispensary down the street on the 1600 block of Broadway that also makes no secret of their mission as solely a medpot dispensary. Will they be next to be targeted for shut-down?

DWR: It's my personal hope that all businesses, regardless of genre, that operate fraudulently or without a license be fully investigated, promptly closed and their operators prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

It's my personal preference that no one (including LBP) accept a single advertising dollar from *any* business, regardless of genre, that operates fraudulently or without a license.

All I advocate is that our laws apply equally to all and that they be fully, fairly and comprehensively enforced.

Hi there, Mr. Lowenthal: I was hoping to have an opportunity to engage with you on this topic! I very much appreciated your comments at B&P and honestly felt yours were some of the best comments from the audience all evening.

To your comments here: Please understand that when I comment here it is as a private citizen and voter in the 3rd Council District, not as a police officer. I do not represent either my City or my Department when I express my views on these matters. Nor have titles ever been particularly important to me.

Few things are "black and white" and it is not my intent to assert that they are, merely that they sometimes should be. I find that many argue far more strongly for their limitations than for their capabilities and that if they would simply shift their focus more toward the *possible* and less toward the *miserable*, so much more of a constructive nature could be accomplished in our community!

Like you, I understand and respect that some dispensaries (I'm not prepared to accept 'for the most part' yet) are trying to follow State law. I simply want them to demonstrate the self-same respect for, and efforts toward, following local law.

As you've no doubt read, my personal bias is toward the rule of law. Thus, if it is unlawful to operate a business in Long Beach without a legitimate business license, these dispensaries should never have opened and in doing so they should have understood that the City could, and quite likely would, seek to close them down.

I don't think any business that is operating in direct and blatant violation of our local business licensing laws can reasonably be considered to be acting "in good faith". Local ordinance does not currently accomodate dispensaries and those who would operate dispensaries, if they are truly acting "in good faith" should fully and completely respect that.

But those that have opened anyway have *not* done so, knowing full well that they were violating our local laws in doing so. In effect, what they have done, then, is to prioritize *their* needs and desires over those of our *community*, as properly represented by our duly-elected City Council. This, sir, can hardly be considered to be "good faith".

Good faith is an important consideration, but your argument along these lines, here, reminds me of that of many who feel that the ends should justify the means. They state, in effect, "So what if they are violating the law? They are doing so out of compassion so it's ok" -and- "It matters not that they have violated our laws, people have a right to their medicine so dispensaries should be left alone to provide it" -and- "They would have gotten a license from the City, they even asked for one, but the City wouldn't give them one, so they opened anyway and they should now be allowed to remain open because we happen to think they are providing a much-needed service."

Mr. Lowenthal, if, as you state here, "there exists no mechanism in place for compliance" then, guess what? These dispensaries should not have opened in the first place nor until such time as such mechanisms were put in place. We must, wherever possible, operate according to the rule of law. If the law doesn't yet permit certain operations, then such operations shouldn't exist in our city until such time that it does.

Should the efforts to craft these regulations have commenced sooner? Certainly! Should people be annoyed that our Council seems so far behind the curve on this challenge? Definitely! But the proper response to that is to await those duly enacted mechanisms, sir, not to do whatever we want in the meantime because the Council's timetable happens to prove inconvenient for us.

To compare medpot dispensaries with Civil Rights champions is, to say the very least, a stretch. I think it's no less disingenuous than Greggory referring to contraband as "medicine" and offered for the same reason; to lend sympathy to the cause of legitimizing businesses that are currently operating unlawfully in our City. These dispensaries are not challenging what they believe to be an unjust law to achieve a greater good. They're not organized (as was Rosa Parks and the remainder of her NAACP colleages) to avail themselves of their right to participate in civil disobedience to effect change. I believe these dispensaries are simply doing what they *want* to do, and often motivated purely by profit, despite what our duly-enacted laws mandate that they *must* do.

This is not civil disobedience on their part in furtherence of a Civil Rights movement, sir. It's simple illegality. Following our local laws in this case would not deprive anyone of any rights, for legitimate patients can go to almost any neighboring city and purchase their medicine there if they so choose. All that delaying the opening of a dispensary in Long Beach would cost an operator is money and for many (if not most) of them, I believe money, and not altruism, is the prime motivator.

I'm so pleased to see that you don't assume the same motives of Mr. Reeves that Greggory seems to. Mr. Reeves did, indeed, say what you ascribe to him and, like you, I take him at his word.

I fully understand Mr. Ruehle's and DWR's comments but I'm not as ready to let dispensary operators off the hook in this case as you and they seem to be. When a law forbids a thing -such as opening a business without a legitimate license- it's actually much easier to comply with that law than some are alleging. **You simply don't open your business until you have received a legitimate license.** You don't falsify the application and claim to be something that you're not. You don't open anyway and make as much money as you can until the City shuts you down again. You simply do not open your business.

I realize that this approach seems inconvenient to some. Following the law has always seemed inconvenient to some, but that's why we have laws, sir, to be better able to live together in a well-ordered and civil society. The day we begin to pick and choose from among our duly-enacted laws is the day that our laws have a little less meaning, and then a little less, and then a little less, until eventually we have devolved into anarchy.

If some take exception with our Council's timing (as I have), then express that clearly and unequivocally, to the Council (as I have), and not by ignoring laws that we, as a community, have so far seen as fit and proper to enact. To be effective, our laws must be seen to apply fairly to all. You have no idea how many times I've heard from business owners and operators in our community that they feel they should stop paying their own business licenses and related fees. "Why should I keep paying?" they ask, "when the City is allowing dozens and dozens of other businesses to continue to operate without requiring that they pay those same fees?" How is this fair? How is this just? The answer, of course, is as simple as it is self-evident: "This approach is neither fair nor just".

Like you, I believe our City will eventually craft medpot regulations that best suit our needs as a community and that are otherwise in compliance with other stautory and case law. Like you I hope that legitimate medpot patients, co-ops and collectives in Long Beach can finally feel confident that they are operating in full compliance with all of our laws.

But let's be completely honest here. These dispensaries have made a *conscious decision* to violate our local laws as they currently exist. No one made them do so. It's not the City's fault. It's not Mr.Reeves' fault. It's not the Court's fault. It's not the community's fault. When confronted with the facts of our local laws, these dispensaries willfully and deliberately chose to violate, rather than to comply, with those laws. And to date there has been precious little consequence for this. This fact is also neither fair nor just.

Some are truly desirous of assisting legitimate patients. More, however, in my opinion, are quite clearly not. They are simply taking full advantage of what I will call an "absence of public policy leadership" to make as much money as they possibly can before they are shut down and/or prosecuted.

I want to sincerely thank you for elevating the dialog on this very challenging topic, Mr. Lowenthal!

FYI, Officer Greet: I wasn't arguing for letting the dispensary operators "off the hook", I was only confused as to how dispensaries managed to proliferate and thrive without being legally licensed.

I'm supportive of cannabis dispensaries for legitimate medicinal purposes so long as they are properly licensed, tightly regulated and held to the highest professional, ethical standards (whatever they may be).