4 Arrested as Club Alleged to Openly Sell Marijuana Is Raided

Sheriff’s deputies said they searched a West Hollywood club that openly sold marijuana and arrested four men Monday on suspicion of possession of the drug for sale.

The club purportedly sells the drug for medicinal purposes, but Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Sgt. Robert Robert Stoneman said that as far as he knows, “selling marijuana is still illegal.”

Authorities identified the arrested men as Rusty Gygax, 24; Donald Howell, 28; Jeffrey Farrington, 27; and John Babji, 30. All four were being booked on the drug counts and then released on their own recognizance.

Officers recovered about a pound of marijuana, pills, some brownies and liquid believed to contain marijuana, Stoneman said.

Last month, state narcotics agents raided the Cannabis Buyers’ Club, a pot emporium in San Francisco that openly sold marijuana to 12,000 customers who said they were using it for medicinal purposes. State Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren obtained a court order to close that club, but maverick San Francisco Sheriff Mike Hennesy refused to enforce the order.

Peter McWilliams, a self-described AIDS and cancer patient, said he has been purchasing marijuana from the West Hollywood club, in the 8100 block of Santa Monica Boulevard, to treat the nausea caused by his illnesses.

He said deputies involved in Monday’s raid confiscated posters and bumper stickers urging support of Proposition 215, a measure on the November ballot that would allow Californians to grow and smoke pot for medical use.