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Deputies shut down marijuana dispensary

Sacramento Bee

A federal Drug Enforcement Administration agent collects marijuana plants as evidence Thursday at Alternative Specialties on Folsom Boulevard, where the cannibis was cultivated under indoor lights.

Sacramento, CA July 8, 2005 -- A medical marijuana dispensary owner, who did prison time for embezzling $5 million while a state employee, was arrested Thursday for operating his shop without a legal business license and for illegal weapons possession.

Sacramento County sheriff's deputies shut down Alternative Specialties and arrested Louis Wayne Fowler after searching his Folsom Boulevard shop and his Rio Linda home, as well as his parents' and his sister's homes, said Sgt. R.L. Davis, sheriff's spokesman.

Financial documents related to the shop were seized, along with a semiautomatic pistol and an illegal fully automatic assault weapon that officers found in Fowler's car, Davis said. Fowler's felony record makes it illegal for him to possess any weapons.

A marijuana advocate identifying himself as Wokstar stands outside the shop with a banner saying, "Safe Access to Medical Marijuana."

Sheriff's deputies also alerted the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, which raided the shop Thursday night. Five DEA agents removed hundreds of marijuana plants.

Fowler, who served seven years in state prison for embezzling $5 million from the state in the early 1980s while he was an entry-level accountant, opened the shop last August.

His application for a business license had been denied, and county code enforcement officials considered his operation to be an illegal one, said Craig Moyle, a spokesman for Sacramento County's Municipal Services Agency.

Investigators from the district attorney's office and the Sheriff's Department also had been looking into the legality of Fowler's business and whether he had been properly reporting income to government agencies, Davis said.

Cannabis cultivated under indoor lights.

''Because of who he is and because he was definitely operating without a business license, they served the search warrants,'' Davis said.

The homes of Fowler's family members were searched because investigators believed financial documents related to the shop were kept there, Davis said.

Fowler's mother, Linda M. Fowler, is president of the North Sacramento Unified School District board. Neither she, nor her husband, Glen, could be reached for comment Thursday night.

Fowler's sister, Mary Jennifer Berg, worked in her brother's shop and has been trying to open a medical marijuana dispensary in Citrus Heights.

For much of Thursday, several sheriff's deputies camped out inside the shop -- where dozens of marijuana plants were in plain view through large windows -- as patients arrived to find the dispensary had been closed.

''It's certainly a setback for people who rely on this dispensary,'' said 33-year-old Brian Sorgatz, who said he buys marijuana to help control symptoms related to his attention deficit disorder. ''This seems like selective law enforcement to me... using the business license issue as a pretext to raid this dispensary. They do know that they are thwarting the will of the people of California.''

In 1996, California voters approved Proposition 215, called the Compassionate Use Act, permitting patients with a doctor's recommendation to use marijuana. But the conflict between California and federal law -- which bans marijuana use for any purpose -- has made operating medical marijuana dispensaries precarious as federal drug agents have raided such operations.

Fowler, who is one of four owners of medicinal marijuana dispensaries in Sacramento County, also is the most high-profile, and some activists say his outspokenness may have drawn extra attention to his operation.

After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last month that California's law legalizing medicinal marijuana would not protect users from being arrested by federal law enforcement authorities, Fowler welcomed reporters and cameras into his shop. He was the only local dispensary owner willing to speak publicly.

''I hope that people don't judge us from their impression of one facility,'' said Ryan Landers, California director of the American Alliance for Medical Cannabis. ''I hope that this doesn't set a precedent for what will happen in the community. It's far safer for patients to get their medicine through dispensaries than to buy it on the street.''

Three other medical marijuana dispensaries operate in Sacramento County, even though county officials imposed a moratorium on such shops last fall. Those dispensaries, Moyle said, are allowed to operate because they properly filed appeals after their business licenses were denied. Fowler, however, had not filed an appeal, Moyle said.