District Attorney Seeks to Close Pot Store

Delivering the first--but perhaps not the last--blow of the week against Andrea Nagy’s marijuana dispensary, lawyers with the Ventura County district attorney’s office filed a complaint Monday asking a judge to shut the operation down.

The six-page civil complaint is the first official action taken by authorities against Nagy, who began selling marijuana for medical use out of a Thousand Oaks office four months ago. Her operation has frustrated many officials who objected to the sale of marijuana but weren’t sure how to stop it.

In the complaint filed in Ventura County Superior Court on Monday, Deputy Dist. Atty. Mitchell F. Disney claims that despite Proposition 215, which legalized marijuana for medical use, Nagy is violating state laws governing business practices, the sale of controlled substances and public nuisances.

The suit seeks a temporary restraining order, permanent injunction and $27,500 in civil penalties against Nagy and her boyfriend, Robert Carson, whom Disney calls the facility’s manager. A hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.

“She’s breaking the law,” Disney said Monday. “Proposition 215 is essentially a grow-your-own statute to allow people with a doctor’s approval to grow their own marijuana to treat their symptoms. It wasn’t intended to allow marijuana emporiums.”

A 28-year-old Hungarian immigrant, Nagy opened the county’s first and only cannabis center in a Thousand Oaks business park in September, about a year after California voters approved the medical-marijuana initiative. The legal secretary, now on leave from her job, uses marijuana to treat her chronic migraines.

The new law, she has argued, is meaningless if seriously ill patients cannot buy marijuana. Nagy has previously suggested that she will not voluntarily agree to close down her dispensary, which serves almost 60 patients suffering from AIDS, cancer, glaucoma and other serious illnesses.

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But she held her tongue on Monday. “I really don’t have any other comment except to say that we’re going to vigorously defend against this,” Nagy said after learning of the district attorney’s action.

Disney said the move to shut down Nagy’s operation took time because officials were waiting for a key state appeals court ruling involving a Northern California pot dealer.

That ruling, issued last month, found that marijuana sales are still illegal after the passage of Proposition 215. The court also ruled that owners of cannabis centers do not qualify as “primary caregivers,” as required by the initiative. The ruling has been appealed to the California Supreme Court.

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“We wanted to make sure that we’re doing what Prop. 215 says,” Disney said. “We want to enforce the law properly, so we waited until the Court of Appeal definitively spoke on the subject--which it now has.”

The district attorney’s office is seeking civil, not criminal, penalties because prosecutors are more interested in getting Nagy to obey the law than in fining her, Disney said.

He said that the conventional wisdom--that no California jury would convict a cannabis center operator of a crime--did not factor into his office’s choice to pursue civil action.

“I think [the choice] is in recognition of the fact that she’s trying to do what she thinks is right,” Disney said. “For that reason, we’re not going to try to make a criminal of her if she’s willing to comply with the law.”

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However, if Nagy disobeys a judge’s order and is found in contempt of court, she could serve up to five days in jail.

Thousand Oaks Mayor Mike Markey--who, along with Councilman Andy Fox, had asked federal authorities to help close the cannabis center--praised the action.

“I think they’re molding to what Mr. Fox and I have been saying: that she’s an illegal use and shouldn’t be there,” Markey said Monday. “This is probably something that should have been done long ago, but apparently they were waiting for the appellate decision. I totally support this.”

The complaint was filed a day before the Thousand Oaks City Council was scheduled to consider strict new zoning rules that could shut Nagy down. It is unclear whether the council will proceed with a zoning discussion now that the district attorney has gotten involved.

“It sounds like our agenda item tomorrow will not be heard,” said Councilwoman Elois Zeanah, who opposed an earlier attempt to close the pot operation. “I don’t think the city should do anything if the district attorney is filing a case. I think it [the item] should be canceled or continued.”