SF's Oldest Pot Clubs on Jan 9
The leaders of one of San Francisco oldest and best medical marijuana dispensaries have announced they'll be closing up shop early in the new year, because of the federal Department of Justice's crackdown on landlords who rent to the dispensaries.
The Market Street Cooperative has been in operation for more than a decade, meeting the needs of its diverse clientele with high quality products at affordable prices. Why it is all of a sudden a target for the feds, as are so many other dispensaries, is quite mysterious and many suspect has a lot to do with President Barack Obama's reelection next year.
Services such as drop-in acupuncture and chair massages were offered, along with small packets of free medicine with people lacking funds. And when the Lyon-Martin Health Clinic was about to go out of business earlier this year, the coop was among the first businesses to step up and make a robust donation to keep it open.
I have been a member of the club pretty much since it first opened it doors, and I am sad and furious that it will soon be gone. To everyone at the coop, allow me to say thank you for years of service to the medical marijuana community. You will be dearly missed.
More info on the coop is here, and this is their letter about the upcoming closure:
Dear Market Street Cooperative Members and Supporters,
With much regret we must announce that we will be closing the doors of our dispensary and client services space at 7:00 pm on January 9, 2012. After years of providing affordable medical cannabis and other health services to our community, we are being forced to close after a San Francisco Assistant United States Attorney threatened our landlords with property forfeiture if the cooperative does not stop dispensing cannabis at our current location.
We apologize for the short notice to our members. Unfortunately, we were just notified that our landlords received the forfeiture letter from the feds and had to act fast.
In an effort to assist our members while they locate a new cooperative or collective to obtain their cannabis and other services, we will be offering a 15% discount on all medicine until we close starting January 1.
This discount cannot be combined with any other discount.
Our hope is that our closure is temporary. At the present moment we do not have plans to offer delivery services. We hope that our current federal administration will reconsider its attack on California's medical cannabis patients and caregivers and stick to its promise to allow law abiding cooperatives, such as Market Street Cooperative, to again provide affordable medical cannabis.
Market Street Cooperative has always strived to be a leader in our community by not only providing low cost medical cannabis, but also providing information and free health services to our membership, by donating to community and non-profit organizations, and our commitment to a mission of helping our community, humanity, animals, and the planet.
Unfortunately, the federal government would like to see an end to medical cannabis in California and the additional contributions to the community it offers. We hope they do not succeed.
Thank you for your support over the years. We will continue to keep our membership updated as we know more.
In Solidarity,
Market Street Cooperative
3 comments:
i am so shocked by this!
Until bad laws are thrown out this is going to happen everywhere. Pot is medicine and should be made legal to prescribe, or decriminalized for personal use like alcohol.
Write call or email your senator, congressmen and president about this travesty. I am crushed.
It is very sad that comes a time where proprietors of Medical Marijuana business are told that the money generally allocated for rent would no longer be accepted, as that hard earned money is once again originating from an operation that is to be considered vile and offensive therefore we would rather allow a property to become vacant generating a loss which perpetuates the downward spiral that forms our economic times. It makes no sense financially or otherwise to turn away hard earned money which is willing given in exchange for a retail location set aside for the purpose of conducting a quite retail establishment whose actions are in compliance with the will of the people of the state of California, and even less logical thought when considering the establishment had been in continual operation for more than a decade... no wonder our finance situation throughout the world is in the shambles of its current condition
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