Cannabis Chronicles

As we continue our series of articles on Arcata, the town where “plants live in the houses and people live in the streets”, it’s time to resume the coverage of the grow house fire that served to help focus community attention on some side issues surrounding the drug war. This is something we journaled about here at the Cannabis Chronicles earlier this week - Burning down the house.

Here’s the inside dope on the most recent happenings from Keven Hoover, Editor of the Arcata Eye.

City Council takes up grow house, clinic regulation (UPDATED) – Oct. 4, 2007
by Kevin L. Hoover - Eye Editor

ARCATA – LaVina Collenberg thought she’d rented her Alice Avenue house to a wholesome family from Wisconsin. The father, Cody Nehring, came with references and paid his rent on time each month. The rent check even came with a family visit, with Nehring, his partner, their young child, his sister and her baby sharing a warm hour or so at Collenberg’s Arcata Bottom ranch home. “They were the nicest kids in the world,” Collenberg said.

It was all a ruse. No one lived at the house on Alice – it had been heavily modified inside to serve as a marijuana farm.

The night of Thursday, Sept. 27, a fire caused $20,000 damage to the house, located west of Janes Road just outside Arcata city limits. Collenberg recently spent $30,000 to renovate the house with new floors, paint, roof and more. “It was spotless,” said Collenberg (mother of the late Randy Collenberg of “Cab 10” fame).

It’s not spotless now. A back room in the house caught fire when a fan fell over, burning up and scorching many marijuana plants. But plants growing in several other rooms which had been converted to gardens were unscathed, and according to neighbors, two U-Haul trucks were at the house within hours, the tenants stringing up a blanket between the truck and the house to block the view of the plants being removed and taken to another, unknown location.

The tenants had heavily modified the house to enable large-scale cultivation, with holes cut in the ceiling to allow ventilation ducts, a huge rectangular hole cut in a floor, irrigation systems, even a wall added in one area. Ventilation ducting and chains for hanging the now-dismantled lighting systems dangle from ceilings.

Though a minimum of furniture was present, there were no beds and Nehring said it had been unoccupied for months. Marijuana remnants, cultivation-related debris, numerous pipes, dirty dishes and garbage were strewn throughout the house. A pile of action-adventure DVDs were heaped in the dining room, where 14 cases of butane lined one wall. Nearby was a box of empty nitrous oxide cylinders. Various scraps of paper and a whiteboard appeared to list tallies of marijuana which has been weighed out.

Three bedrooms were used exclusively for cultivation. One room, apparently occupied at some point by a child, still contained toys along with hallide lamps and other cultivation equipment. In the back room where the fire started, several burned and soot-damaged marijuana plants droop in a corner. Another room criss-crossed with strings was apparently used to dry harvested marijuana. A hot tub spa was used to germinate seeds, according to Collenberg.

LaVina didn’t need this
Collenberg said the fire was covered by insurance. But her disillusionment isn’t.

The night of the fire, an Alice Avenue neighbor called to tell her that her rental home was surrounded by fire trucks. Collenberg immediately assumed that one of the children had fallen into a bathtub or some similar tragedy. “Did somebody die?” she asked.

Then she went to the scene and observed the use to which the house had been put, the deception and the damage. There, she was aggressively questioned by Deputy Todd Fulton – accused of complicity, she said, describing the exchange as follows:

“You know about this, didn’t you?” Fulton asked.

“No, I’m stunned,” she replied.

“Yes, you did,” Fulton countered.

“Huh?”

“A nice house like this; you must know.”

Fulton reportedly asked Collenberg how much the rent was, and she told him it was $2,025 monthly.

“Well, then you knew about it,” Fulton said.

Collenberg further alleged that Fulton countered her protestations of innocence with a dismissive gesture. “He just shrugged it off like I was lying,” she said.

Following the exchange, Arcata Fire Captain Jesse Cummings told Collenberg that the deputy’s questioning was overly aggressive. “He [Cummings] told me, ‘Don’t you take that kind of stuff from him,’” Collenberg recalled.

“His demeanor towards here was not appropriate, in my opinion,” Cummings said of Fulton. “It just took me back a little bit. It wasn’t appropriate. I was worried that she was getting stressed out.” Arcata Fire Chief John McFarland also overheard the Fulton-Collenberg exchanges, and confirmed the substance of her account.

Collenberg said Fulton called later to apologize. She said Fulton told her that, “I want to apologize to you and how rough I was on you. It’s hard to tell the good people from the bad people.”

Sheriff Gary Philp said he later spoke with the deputy and was satisfied that he had only been asking “frank and pointed questions.” While “he could have been badgering her a little,” Philp acknowledged, he maintained that Fulton was “just trying to get to the facts.”

Collenberg, 73, lost her son, Randy, in a vehicle accident in 1999. Husband Tony passed away in 2002. Her brother and his wife were killed in a car wreck the following year.

The tenant’s tale
Contacted by phone, Nehring claimed that the multi-room grow was a “cooperative” for five medical marijuana patients. Indeed, five Prop 215 certifications were posted on the living room wall, one with Nehring’s name on it. The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office reportedly will not charge the occupants with anything, as they were duly covered by Prop 215.

Nehring insists that all the marijuana grown at the house was for medical use. He had no explanation for the cases of butane in the corner of the dining room. Butane is commonly used to extract THC-laden resin from marijuana, creating hash oil. “I don’t know about that,” Nehring said.

Collenberg said she had a “no drugs” provision in the rental agreement Nehring signed. Nehring said that only pertained to illegal drugs, and that his operation was legal.

He insisted that the multi-room crops were consumed exclusively by the five cannabis patients. Asked how five people could smoke that much marijuana, he said, “I don’t know… whatever. That’s your personal opinion.” He pledged to repair all the damage.

Collenberg said that to her surprise, a tenant whom she had evicted in December was apparently still living at the home, with Nehring’s approval.

Arcata Fire Chief John McFarland said the cases of butane could have easily killed firefighters, tenants and even neighbors, had the fire reached it. Nearby was another box containing hundreds of of spent nitrous oxide cylinders. A later inspection revealed another bix of butane in the attic. Numerous large black trash bags of “shake” – low-THC leaf matter and stems – were found in the garage.

Dr. Ken Miller, who issued Nehring’s 215 Certification, said he regretted the fire. He wants indoor grows to be inspected and approved by private electricians. He wouldn’t say what fee he charges for the medical marijuana certifications, only that it was under $150.

Impacts throughout town
In Arcata, neighbors and police have become increasingly concerned about the proliferation of grow houses. Apart from the danger of fire, there have also been violent home invasion robberies. In subdivisions where the houses look alike (especially at night) neighbors are concerned about robbers getting houses mixed up. Oh, and that smell.

An entirely new and unanticipated phenomenon has cropped up – neighborhoods going silent. Homes which used to house students have now been converted to indoor gardens. Humboldt State University has become concerned about already-limited student housing drying up. Controversial new subdivisions proposed for agricultural land have prompted discussion about how many of the new houses would wind up as grows.

Another question is how many grow houses there are in Arcata. No one knows. What is known is that such houses are in all sections of town, from upscale Diamond Drive to the newish Sorensen Subdivision to Sunny Brae. One Sunny Brae resident called PG&E after his lights dimmed when a neighbor used an electric power saw. He was told that there were so many indoor marijuana grows on his street that the transformers had become overburdened.

Ninth Street resident Wade DeLashmutt has been among the few citizens to speak out at public meetings. His next-door neighbor’s grow house has changed the character of the neighborhood, with windows blacked out, a persistent marijuana odor and vehicles coming and going at odd hours, plus the complete absence of neighborly activity. “Everything happens at night,” DeLashmutt said.“It’s a bad vibe.”

The motivation may be medical for many growers, but a profit motive is clearly in the mix. “It’s good side work,” said one indoor grower. With crops every three months, a room which would have garnered a monthly $400 rent check as a student rental might bring in tens of thousands of dollars a year if used for cutivation.

Council weighs in
This Wednesday, Oct. 3, the City Council will consider “Policy Issues and Alternative Land Use Regulatory Strategies for ‘Grow Houses’ and Medical Marijuana Clinics.” A staff report recommends that the council:

1. Determine any need to regulate clinics and grow houses.

2. Provide direction to staff regarding residential grows being allowed only as “accessory use” and subject to “specified standards”; establishing those standards; designating Commercial and Central Business Zones as the only locations where medical marijuana clinics are allowed; capping the number of clinics at four; and providing siting criteria for “replacement” clinics.

3. Staff also asks the council to develop standards for the draft Land Use Code which is now being written.

Oct. 4 update: The City Council voted Oct. 3 to direct staff to develop a proposal to create a task force to study cannabis grow house/dispensary issues. The five- to seven-member task force would then bring recommendations back to the council for discussion, adjustment and approval.

For folks who might be interested in following this story even further, the KHUM Humboldt Review will spend an entire hour discussing medical cannabis tonight going over the issues which have cropped up in Arcata regarding unintended consequences of suburban grow houses, clinics etc.

The show begins in moments @ 6 p.m. Pacific Time, and streams at khum.com.