SPRING VALLEY POT DISPENSARY RAIDED

By Miriam Raftery

November 11, 2017 (Spring Valley) -- Exotic Warehouse, an illegal marijuana clinic in Spring Valley was raided Thursday following multiple complaints by concerned citizens, says Sergeant Matt Cook with the Sheriff’s Department.

Sheriff’s SWAT team members assisted the Rancho San Diego Crime Suppression Team and area detectives in serving a search warrant, finding a large amount of marijuana, edible cannabis products, marijuana paraphernalia and more.

Five people were detained for unlawful marijuana sales, but no arrests have been made at this time. The investigation is ongoing.

Although California voters recently voted to legalize use of recreational marijuana starting next January, and voted over a decade ago to legalize medical marijuana, state law allows each jurisdiction to set its own rules.

Some, such as the city of San Diego, have opted to allow sale of recreational and medical marijuana, as well as deliveries.  Others, such as El Cajon, have prohibited all marijuana sales.

In unincorporated areas of the County such as Spring Valley, marijuana sales of all types remain illegal, except for a couple of medical cannabis dispensaries grandfathered in prior to a new law that will phase out all sales over the next several years—unless a citizens’ initiative on the ballot, or election of new supervisors, overturns the earlier action.

While illegal dispensaries have resulted in problems such as robberies and assaults which operators often fail to report to law enforcement, by contrast, a legally licensed dispensary operator at Gillespie Field has told ECM his facility has never been robbed and that in a single attempted robbery, he called the Sheriff and the would-be thieves were arrested.