Lawsuit-Propelled Sliding Numbers Puzzle

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I had one - or several - of these when I was a mere wee lad. They were really fun.

Now I have a super-duper, lawsuit-propelled, animated model(s) next door to keep me entertained. It is even more fun than the little plastic toy puzzles, because this one incorporates elements of a closed system rat maze.

A loose legend for the diagram below:

• Red blocks - mostly permanent vehicles.
• Red outlines - approximate count of cars, trucks and vans (they come, they go, mysteriously increase in number, and rearrange themselves continuously.)
• Red X's - structures demolished.
• Blue X's - structures to be demolished.
• Green circles and numbered arrows - Raiders football play notation for the movement of "stuff" from one place to another for the last couple months.

If they keep up the good work of demolition and remediation at this pace, in no time at all they will be ready to pick up their loaded containers, pile all their household items onto the old trash truck, strap Granny and Auntie and a couple dogs on top of the teetering load and, like modern-day Joads*, hit the road to go Californicate** Oregon. Now that would call for a HUGE Good Riddance celebration!

You see, I used to feel trapped in the illegal business/noise maze, but now it appears that the Barefoot Dirty Girls (Mellow Yellow, Ravaged Red, and Guts[y] Green) are running around like headless chickens (and still shoeless?) in this maze of their own making. The infield play is complicated by the handyman workers that come over virtually every day, parking their trucks on the lot and either demolishing or building or pulling wires or endless other tasks. Of course, the BDGs are painting or doing some other light work between toke breaks ('cause, you know, Mellow Yellow has the qualifying "debilitating pain" necessary for "treatment" with homegrown marijuana.)

Perhaps they are consolidating their "good shit" and preparing to hold a gigantic fund-raiser garage sale for the rest of it to fund their impending relocation. Perhaps that's why the two never-before-seen cars appeared from under the shed that was torn down by the east fence. Hmmm... where'd the ol' John Deere go?

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* ref. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck

** californicate (v) 1. The act of migration from California to other states in search of cheaper housing, better morals, and lack of gangs, drugs, prostitution, etc. Instead, they drive up house prices whereever they move to, and bring their low morals, gangs, drugs, and prostitution to the other states; 2. To fuck up or make like California. Many years ago there was a bumper sticker reading, "DON'T CALIFORNICATE COLORADO!" Oregonians for a long time held such sentiments against immigrants from California, but now seem to welcome every liberal, white trash, low life scofflaw. Such is the proof of California's malady.

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How Crazy is Running For Manteca City Council?

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A recent comment on the Manteca Bulletin Online system was made by someone who appeared to be a first-level student from the Rex Osborn Office of Double-Tongued Spin-Doctoring and Character Assassination, a city-paid position. There was an echo, a repetition, a redundant enunciation, another insinuation of the perjorative innuendo and slander leveled at me during Rex's clever misrepresentation of city (in)actions regarding my case and his intentional sowing of deprecatory seeds during the forty-minute public abortion at the March 3, 2009 City Council meeting. The subject was supposed to be the illegal activities of my neighbors and the city administration's refusal to enforce city codes - or even to review their own shirked responsibility for the whole sorry, sordid affair.

The commenter suggested I get counseling. Counseling?! Oh, I sought counseling, all right - legal counsel! Many, many dollars of legal counsel. Much more than I will spend on this campaign for city council.

Credentials? I am totally blown away by the inadequacies and irregularities that have surfaced in this so-called city during my three-year "campaign" against both my ignorant, nasty, noisy Neighbors From Hell and City Hall. I have graduated - pummelled, bloody, still standing - from a crash course offered by the Manteca Citizens College of Do-It-Yourself. I am the proud recipient of a Lifetime Go-To-Hell Degree, with gratuitous endorsements from the Police Department (Code Enforcement) and Community Development (Zoning).

The city folks I've dealt with on the other side of the cute, lily-white picket fence at 1001 W Center Street, Manteca, were all trained and graduated with a

B.S. degree in Bumbling Bureaucratic Bufoonery (BS_B3)
(The "Practical Machiavelli" honors endorsement is available for a small fee)

Lower Division courses (All tracks)
   Basic and Intermediate Finger-Pointing
   Basic Shifting of Responsibility
   Plan A: Maintaining Effective Deniability
   Plan B: The Bald-Faced Denial (only for those with Performing Arts aspirations)
   Disarming Irate Citizens: Those Records Are In Storage
   Disarming Irate Citizens: Blame It On the Computer System
   Disarming Irate Citizens: Blame It On the Economy
   Disarming Irate Citizens: Are We Supposed to Know the Codes?

Upper Division courses (Management track)
   Wig-Making and Disguise: How to Look and Speak Like an Official
   Bathtub Cooking and Applying of Black Market Teflon
   Intermediate Shifting of Responsibility and Assigning Blame Elsewhere
   Laundering Public Funds [Semi-]Legally
   Back-Scratching for the Career-Minded Municipal Professional
   Jurisdiction Changes: She's Old - She Must Be Grandfathered
       (prerequisite: Disarming Irate Citizens: Those Records Are In Storage)
   How To Write Official Looking Reports and Letters:
        Section 1: Saying a Whole Lot of Nothing With Words
        Section 2: Using Boilerplate Effectively (for those who fail Section 1)
        Section 3: Scaring The Hell Out of Docile Citizens

Senior Seminars in Special Administrative or Elective Skills (Choose any or all)
   Quid Pro Quo, Vigorish and Other Sometimes Useful Latin/Italian Terms
   Working Your Boss' Reelection Campaign: Pitfalls, Evasions and Workarounds
   Bright-Lining With the Malleable Underpaid City Attorney (bring hand sanitizer)
   City Contracts v. the Brown Act (Art elective)
   Driving Semi's Through California's RDA Loopholes, and Other Shortcuts
   Media Questions: The Side-Step and William Henry Lane Tap Dance (P.E. credit)
   (Call for full selection and details)

Selected sample of collected Master Theses (How To's) and Doctoral Dissertations (Time-Tested Propaganda Manuals - extra charge applies) available for checkout. .pdf upon request. 

• The Joys of Inbreeding: When One of "Us" Gets Elected (Career development for retired administrators)

• Rigging, Deploying and Repacking Golden Parachutes (high profile users only, please)

• Writing (and Rewriting) Employment Contracts For Fun and Profit Cost Savings

• Rubles From Rubes: Painless and Almost Undetectible Taxpayer Shakedowns

• Empire Building as Preface to World Domination: Manufacturing and Exploiting Natural and Man-Made Crises To Enlarge Government Intervention and Control in Markets, Industries, and Communities (as Well as Back Yards, Bedrooms, and Bank Accounts)

• Political Accounting: Taking Credits, Deflecting Debits (media sound-bytes)

• Political Calculus: Trading Favors (fun scavenger hunt format covers wines, cigars, dives, dames (or...), and many other items of interest to those seeking to cozy up to other self-inflated politicos and self-important big shots)

• Tactical and Strategic Retreats: Keeping a Weather Eye on the Rivers and Fords

• Rex Osborn's Bible: The Courtly Art of Character Assassination (private tutorials only; call author for rates - but if you call, he will not accept you as a student because an artful practitioner does not leave such tracks. See? Your first ninja lesson for free!)

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More credentials? Try reading the Manteca Bulletin announcement from last October.
Or, call the Elections Officer after the filing deadline, August 6th, and get the information required to be made public by candidates.
Or, call me for a brief chat (phone number in the public filings.)
Or, go to a city council meeting; I'm usually there.
Or, toss me one of your credentials, then I'll toss you one of mine. (Hint: I'm not a rocket scientist.)

One commenter gets it: "Bottom line, it's because this city will not lift a finger to assist him about these terrible neighbors."

And another: "Behling became interested in running because of the problems he's had with his neighbors and code enforcement but he's not a government employee or a career politician and seems to be smart enough so I'm going to vote for him."

And, to be fair and balanced, I include a back-handed endorsement by my ex-catering truck driver, pot-smoking neighbor, Mellow Yellow Lynda:

Ms. Allen: ... He has nothing else to do or he would not have written those two big books.
Mayor Weatherford: I don't think we want to get into the personal issues here.
Ms. Allen: Well, I try not to do that, but I'm just saying that somebody has a little extra time on their hands. (audience laughs)

Gotta love Lynda's gravelly voice, the Pinole-girl accent and her redneck humor. (Hey! That's HER word. "We like rednecks.")

The bottom bottom line is: These pathetic $^%$&^s next door and downtown are what it took to overcome my inertia, which inertia besets ANYONE who contemplates offering himself up for public office. It is the spark; it is NOT the whole explosion.

Hit the polls on November 2nd. Take all your friends, if any, with you. Vote for whomever you believe will give you the most responsive government to your wants  desires  welfare needs  legitimate needs. Between you and the few other voters who bother to show up that day, you will get the government you elect. You will get the government you deserve, whether you vote or not.
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Fighting The War of _812 With Abandon(ment)

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Salute to

Ravaged Red, Mellow Yellow, and Guts[y] Green

Following up on last week's demolition derby in the Barefoot Dirty Girl's Supreme Sovereign Annexation Island of Southwestern Manteca (an independent outpost territory of French Guinea), I sent the following letter to Manteca's city hall:


July 26, 2010

City of Manteca

Attn: Mark Houghton, Public Works
1001 W Center Street
Manteca, CA 95336

Subject: Abandonment of Street Address - 812 Fishback Street, APN 222-11-003

Dear Mr. Houghton,

The mobile home bearing the address 812 Fishback Street has been demolished. The work commenced on Tuesday, July 20, 2010, and was completed over this last weekend.

Picture #1 – The mobile home as it appeared before demolition.

Picture #2 – Demolition in progress. Unpermitted shed still standing.
Picture #3 – The mobile home and shed demolished.

The owners may be preparing to construct a nonresidential accessory building to house their medical marijuana plants, shown growing under the solar panels in Pictures #2 and #3.

Please verify the demolition of 812 Fishback Street and record the abandonment of that address. Please notify the necessary agencies, as indicated on the attached letter, dated January 7, 1987, wherein Engineering first assigned the address to the mobile home. (For the sake of completeness, also attached is the letter of December 30, 1986, regarding the main dwelling.)

Finally, as a public records request, and as support for my lawsuit # 39-2009-00212085-CU-OR-STK in Superior Court, please provide me a copy of the official address abandonment, mailing it to P.O. Box 1761, Lathrop, CA 95330.

Sincerely yours,

Attachments:

Assessors Parcel Map for APN 222-11-003
Pictures #1, #2, and #3
Letters of January 7, 1987 and December 30, 1986

As part of the 1986 annexation procedure - and without doing any research regarding valid land use permits for the "inherited" temporary structure - it appears that in 1987 Mr. Hulsey (ret.) issued the mobile home a street address with reliance on these facts:

• Mrs. Mego's word of the mobile home's existence, and
• her (mistaken) assumption of its legality by reason of its existence, and
• his (mistaken) assumption that the County of San Joaquin Planning Dept knew what it was doing in tracking mobile home permits.

What he clearly missed was a lawful abatement of the mobile home on or after April 1982 under the terms of Mr. Grubb's lapsed annual permit (last renewal in 1981).

The Grubb's carelessness - the County's carelessness - the Mego's carelessness - Mr. Hulsey's carelesness - all leading up to Mellow Yellow Lynda's carelessness, greed, and deliberate deceit - compounded into a horrific detriment to innocent neighbors during Allen's & Brassey's twenty-three-year reign of noisome terror.

Adding insult to injury is the deliberate carelessness (read: ass-covering) displayed by current employees and elected officials of the City of Manteca, who stridently argued with me and steadfastly refused to remediate the sins of the past in the present.

The fact that this almost prehistoric structure - unholy temple of the BDG's rapacious* avarice** - has finally turned to dust is cause for quiet celebration.

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{NOT!!! Call in the catering trucks! Turn up the dance music! Break out Red's stash! Party on!}

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* rapacious (adj) predatory, vulturous - living by preying on other animals especially by catching living prey; excessively greedy and grasping; "a rapacious divorcee (or caterer) on the prowl"; wolfish - devouring or craving food (or money, or special privilege) in great quantities.

** avarice (n) greed, covetousness - reprehensible acquisitiveness; insatiable desire for wealth (personified as one of the deadly sins); covetousness, cupidity - extreme greed for material wealth.

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To Do List For 810 Fishback Cleanup

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What do we call the mobile home demolition?  A GOOD START!!!

Remove the mobile home, license # FQ1259.

Register abandonment of street address, 812 Fishback Street, with the City of Manteca.

File and publish an Abandonment of Fictitious Business Name Statement for TLC Catering.

Register the discontinuance of TLC Catering and Commissary with the San Joaquin County Environmental Health Department.

Close out the California Seller's Permit for TLC Catering and Commissary with the State Board of Equalization.

Register with the City of Manteca for residential refuse collection service.

Remove the equipment and demolish the covered patio structure behind mobile home (eastward.)

Remove the Trailmobile refrigerated shipping container behind the mobile home (eastward.)

Remove the grease barrels and demolish the storage corral and its impermeable surfaces.

Remove the equipment from the shanty shed on the north property line.

• Scotsman icemaker and condenser
• Follett ice storage/dispensing bin
• Admiral freezer/refrigerator combo
• Kenmore upright freezer
• Bally walk-in freezer

Demolish the shanty shed, including concrete pad and corral fence, on the north property line (that is, everything between the outbuilding and the north fence.)

Remove the chest freezer on covered porch attached to main dwelling (eastward.)

Remove the outdoor radio, including the outdoor speaker attached to outbuilding.

Remove all other equipment, fixtures, parts stocks, and inventories currently or formerly used in the nonconforming uses.

Demolish other impermeable surfaces encroaching within current setback requirements immediately south of the north property line.

Replace north property line fence destroyed by water drainage from illegal nonconforming structures and impermeable surfaces.

Remove all commercial vehicles and discontinue parking or bringing Mobile Food Preparation Units onto the property for any purpose.

Remove all inoperable, unlicensed, or unused vehicles formerly used in the nonconforming uses.

Keep only three dogs and/or cats on the property, per MMC 17.07.030, The Keeping of Animals.

Ensure all personal property accessory to outdoor residential use, attended or unattended, shall not create noise, dust, vibration, smell, smoke, glare, electrical interference, fire hazard or any other hazard or nuisance at the north property line.

Every morning from now on - after 8:00 a.m. - each resident shall repeat aloud ten times the motto: “Good Neighbors Keep Their Noise To Themselves”

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Motion to Amend Complaint is Filed

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My attorney and I met this morning to finish up the Amended Complaint (or Pleading) and it has now been filed with the Superior Court in Stockton. The other documents, Points and Authorities in Support and Notice of Motion to Amend, etc., were included in the court filing. A hearing on the motion is scheduled for September 1st.

A proposal to stipulate (agree and end this litigation) accompanied the required service of these filings on the Defendants.

The initial complaint, filed fourteen months ago, has been amended or "tightened up" to focus on the longstanding illegality of operating TLC Catering and Commissary at 810 and 812 Fishback Street, Manteca, CA 95337, and the incessant noise nuisance the operation produced 24/7 for many years, but especially the last three and one-half years. The Amended Complaint has two attachments: 1) the June 1993 letter from the City of Manteca granting legal nonconforming status to the illegal business use, and 2) the June 2010 affidavit from Ben Cantu recanting his 1993 determination, based on good, solid research refuting the Defendants' deceit and misrepresentations (legalese for lies.)

The prayer is for a declaration on the matter of law (the use was never grandfathered) and two injunctions, one regarding the business operations and assets (cessation and removal from property) and another for the bad faith retaliation of the outdoor radio (removal.)

I already have my bets placed on the expected response from the Defendants, Mellow Yellow and Ravaged Red. Here's how I see their entire defense going:

"But, Yer 'Oner, lookit alla For Sale signs we have on eve'thin'! We's so poor it's hard ta get BBQ and sodas onna table ever' night. (Never mind that house remodel thing...) 'Sides, lookit, we tore down the mobile home, what musta been legal 'cause it was on the place when we bought it... uh, when it was cuntry. Ya know, we's from the Bay Area and we gave good service in Tracy for 25 years. Ever'body says so. We all'ays had Health permits... musta just 'overlooked' licensing the business thing for 23 years. {shrug} Just sayin'... Oh, an' anuther thing - the icemaker - it DOESN'T run all night! It had some kinda timer on it, or sumpthin'. Fact is, we turned it off last January or February... tried to sell it, too, but it wouldn't run. Go, Raiders! Sorry, jus' gettin' wound up... {Lynda abruptly wanders away from the witness box as she trails off the last sentence.}"

See? They ain't got nuthin' else, 'ceptn' s.o.s.* from city council meetin'.

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* same old s**t
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Illegal Mobile Home Demolished - 28 Years Too Late!

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I got a text message yesterday. It asked, "Hey, is my mind playing tricks on me? The BDGs have torn down their mobile shack?

Mobile home - Before

Mobile Home - After

(BTW, that's their pot farm, out in the open still, all those cute little plants under the solar panels. The police told me they told Lynda to enclose and secure it. There's a reason marijuana is called "dope.")

It's about time the Barefoot Dirty Girls "get" the final aim of the lawsuit!

When Mellow Yellow and Ravaged Red moved onto the property November 13, 1987 - 23 years ago - they did so BECAUSE of the mobile home. From the transcript of the city council meeting, Lynda's answer on March 3, 2009 to the Mayor's question confirms that:

Mayor Weatherford: When you bought the property, did you have an intention to use it in a certain way?
Ms. Allen: Yes, it was all laid out. Yes...

The mobile home had already been on the property illegally for five years BEFORE the BDGs bought the place.

CLUELESS County of San Joaquin...




Then they moved their catering truck operation onto the property (without a Manteca land use permit) and used the mobile home as their commissary for six years (without a Health Department Commissary permit.) Oh, eventually they applied to the Health Department for a private commissary in 1993 - right after being told by the city that they could NOT expand their business use - then hauled all sorts of trailers, freezers, and an icemaker onto their property, and poured concrete and built several unpermitted sheds to cover all the crap, and dumped gravel over half the yard to turn it into a business compound.

CLUELESS City of Manteca...

It's about time this mobile home is gone! These charlatans saved a ton of money over those twenty-three years of hellish and illegal use, which kept them in business by undercutting the competition's operating costs and evading municipal regulations. (Their mantra: Nosy, whiney neighbors and officials be damned!)

Last week my attorney sent over a 30-day Notice to Inspect Property and a Demand For Production of Documents relating to the legality of the mobile home in my neighbors’ yard. The only document this mobile home possesses is the 1976 permit, above, which expired in 1982. This week the monstrosity, which enticed the two-legged rodents to take up residence in the first place, is finally being torn down.

Once the mobile home is gone, its address (812 Fishback Street) will be decommissioned by the City of Manteca.

This demolition assuages my fear that they were going to convert their illegal mobile home/TLC Commissary into Mellow Yellow's Pot Farm. The lawsuit will, of course, continue until the whole nonconforming operation is judged illegal and ALL the appertanant structures and equipment have to go. If new construction takes place for a pot farm enclosure, I will ensure that the BDGs have a Manteca building permit - just like when they tried to rebuild their back porch without a permit.



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Going To Pot

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My doper-next-door, Mellow Yellow, keeps conflict alive and last week's open pot farm episode again exposed some key deficiencies in her mental makeup. The people of the State of California were being truly compaaassionate when they decided to let Lynda Allen start toking {finally legal now, are you, Auntie Lyn?} because now she can go from being a mere mental basket case to a true THC-supercharged head case.

"Not surprisingly, marijuana intoxication can cause distorted perceptions, impaired coordination, difficulty in thinking and problem solving, and problems with learning and memory. Research has shown that marijuana’s adverse impact on learning and memory can last for days or weeks after the acute effects of the drug wear off. As a result, someone who smokes marijuana every day may be functioning at a suboptimal intellectual level all of the time." {That's smart-talk for "self-induced retardation." [damn! second try...] That's smart-talk for "drugged idiot."}

This has got to be a case of God "Bless[ing] the Beasts and the Children" and putting up with Mellow Yellow (#2).


Aside from her surprise move of voluntarily applying for the first permit of her life {wait! how can I be sure of the 'voluntary' part?}, I knew exactly how her newly [legally] drugged brain was going to respond to the city ordinance that the pot farm be enclosed. If my hearing does not deceive me, she has set her legally adopted handymen to work converting one of her illegal structures to house and grow her precious weed. So I called my attorney for an appointment.

A third important item from yesterday was my attorney visit. At my request he had already worked up and sent a 30-day Notice to Inspect Property, a legal discovery seeking a complete inventory of business assets. The notice will be met with one of two possible responses by the Yellow and Red Defendants (place your bets now):

• Option A (Dream.) I fully anticipate the same level of generous cooperation, prompt responsiveness, and unrestrained goodwill that the Defendants have demonstrated over the course of the last thirteen (13) months this suit has been open. I expect the same cordial welcoming as always experienced on or about August 13th next, as I inspect, document, and photograph the individual structures and equipment used in conducting the business of TLC Catering and Commissary.
•  
• Option B (Reality.) The Barefoot Dirty Girls' last communication regarding a potential settlement to the lawsuit was to try blowing smoke up my ass  crank up the radio - obviously declining the offer and again proving the mens rea radio nuisance retaliation.

We then worked out further Demands for Production and a further Request for Admissions relating to the business assets and the cessation of the Defendants' illegal business operations.

To round out yesterday's work, a Motion to Amend Initial Pleadings alleging retaliatory nuisance caused by their maliciously maintaining the outdoor radio will be drafted and filed before filing a Motion for Summary Judgment.

These three banana-shaped xxxxx's will be peeled, dried, and pipe smoked.

{Keep up your deliberately ignorant and unbelievably crude monkey business for just a little longer, Mellow Yellow, Ravaged Red, and Guts[y] Green.}
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Code-Talking Trustees Maintain The Warden's Prime Directive

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Yesterday at 05:48 hrs, up in smoke Mellow Yellow snuck off the gated, guarded (but not sound attenuated) cell block in Guts[y] Green's car. Subsequent events indicate she was detained on some undoubtedly important errand for a period of time.

For a goodly portion of the next hour, Ravaged Red and Guts[y] Green aimlessly knocked about their property.

Then this conversation commenced at 07:02 hrs:

Red: "I think it's that time, Green."

Green: "Whazat?"

Red: "I think it's that time."

Green: "That time?" {called to dogs for the next few seconds}

Red: "Moo-zĕk'-ah." {the mutilated attempt by the monolingual fry cook to pronounce 'musica,' the Spanish word for music}

Green: "Oh, oh... oh...? Oh! THAT time!" {she hastened to turn on the yard radio - it played for the next thirteen hours}



Ravaged Red's sortie into linguistic endeavors ("Something’s Wrong - But You’ll Never Know What It Is")  shows that she falls into the same under-performing quartile as Mellow Yellow. The same goes for the Tertiary Trustee, Guts[y] Green, in her listening skills and her abortive impression of a music show host.

Mellow Yellow should be sooo proud of her #1 and #2 students!
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The City Council Nomination Period Is Open

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Today I met with the Election Officer of the City of Manteca and received the Nomination Paper-Official Filing Form.

The next step is to find twenty to thirty voters in Manteca who will lend their name to my nomination to stand as a candidate for city council.
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There's A Reason It's Called "Dope"

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This saga just keeps getting better and better! In the post, Shooting Yourself in the Foot, I asked what would happen if the BDGs shot themselves in the other foot? Already, here is their answer!

On June 12, 2010, I discovered this unusual “weed” growing in my yard, over near the portion of the fence which had recently been reconstructed by the neighbors. I had never seen this kind of plant on my property before and had no clue how it might have gotten there. I photographed it, pulled it up, and destroyed it. My friend came over to identify the plant and witness its destruction.

For comparison purposes, here is an internet picture of a young marijuana plant.

On July 8, 2010, I looked over the fence and saw this plant (below) in my neighbors’ yard. The leaf structure is identical to the plant I photographed in my yard on June 12th. (Now I know the source!) My friend again returned to verify this new discovery.

Another view from a different vantage point on July 8, 2010, showed a large number of these same plants being cultivated in the neighbors’ flower planter.

All three photographs were printed on 8x10 glossy paper and, at 2:00 p.m., my friend and I personally delivered them to the Manteca Police Department for investigation.

Perhaps I ought to call Channel 3 and offer them a follow up story to their noisy icemaker story – something along the lines of shutting down the illegal catering business and now the neighbors' illegal marijuana grow.

I did not bet against Lynda having a medical marijuana recommendation for her claimed “injuries.” But we are also positive that the "injured" one will follow the pot-growing laws METICULOUSLY - especially since she shares a fence with Sierra High School! Also, caregivers are not to partake and prescriptions are not transferrable, so sharing a toke with domestic partners or hired boy-toys is a definite no-no.

The Manteca Police Department called July 9, 2010 to say Lynda was given a copy of Manteca Municipal Code 8.35 Cultivation and Possession of Medical Marijuana and given a couple weeks to comply. (I wonder if I could get the MPD to deliver Lynda a copy of MMC 9.52 Residential Noise since she cannot seem to get her illegal radio playing under control? Oh, wait... she's a pothead now, so I have to be compaaassionate!) I'm sure she tried to claim her plants were grandfathered from when she was in the county (which she never was), but... cultivated marijuana is an annual, for you gardeners out there.

(WARNING to all the girls and boys thinking to jump the fence: There are vicious junkyard dogs roaming the property. But, to hell with the dogs - the owners are worse!)

The Manteca ordinance refers to a couple sections of California's Health and Safety Code, below.
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California Health and Safety Code 11362.5 (The Lawful Loophole)

11362.5. (a) This section shall be known and may be cited as the Compassionate Use Act of 1996.

(b) (1) The people of the State of California hereby find and declare that the purposes of the Compassionate Use Act of 1996 are as follows:
   (A) To ensure that seriously ill Californians have the right to obtain and use marijuana for medical purposes where that medical use is deemed appropriate and has been recommended by a physician who has determined that the person's health would benefit from the use of marijuana in the treatment of cancer, anorexia, AIDS, chronic pain, spasticity, glaucoma, arthritis, migraine, or any other illness for which marijuana provides relief. [Unfortunately, dope doesn't relieve Lynda's problems, it make them worse.]
   (B) To ensure that patients and their primary caregivers who obtain and use marijuana for medical purposes upon the recommendation of a physician are not subject to criminal prosecution or sanction.
   (C) To encourage the federal and state governments to implement a plan to provide for the safe and affordable distribution of marijuana to all patients in medical need of marijuana.
(2) Nothing in this section shall be construed to supersede legislation prohibiting persons from engaging in conduct that endangers others, nor to condone the diversion of marijuana for nonmedical purposes.
(c) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no physician in this state shall be punished, or denied any right or privilege, for having recommended marijuana to a patient for medical purposes.
(d) Section 11357, relating to the possession of marijuana, and Section 11358, relating to the cultivation of marijuana, shall not apply to a patient, or to a patient's primary caregiver, who possesses or cultivates marijuana for the personal medical purposes of the patient upon the written or oral recommendation or approval of a physician.
(e) For the purposes of this section, "primary caregiver" means the individual designated by the person exempted under this section who has consistently assumed responsibility for the housing, health, or safety of that person.
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California Health and Safety Code 11362.77 (Allowable Limits)

11362.77. (a) A qualified patient or primary caregiver may possess no more than eight ounces of dried marijuana per qualified patient. In addition, a qualified patient or primary caregiver may also maintain no more than six mature or 12 immature marijuana plants per qualified patient.

(b) If a qualified patient or primary caregiver has a doctor's recommendation that this quantity does not meet the qualified patient's medical needs, the qualified patient or primary caregiver may possess an amount of marijuana consistent with the patient's needs.

(c) Counties and cities may retain or enact medical marijuana guidelines allowing qualified patients or primary caregivers to exceed the state limits set forth in subdivision (a).

(d) Only the dried mature processed flowers of female cannabis plant or the plant conversion shall be considered when determining allowable quantities of marijuana under this section.


(e) The Attorney General may recommend modifications to the possession or cultivation limits set forth in this section. These recommendations, if any, shall be made to the Legislature no later than December 1, 2005, and may be made only after public comment and consultation with interested organizations, including, but not limited to, patients, health care professionals, researchers, law enforcement, and local governments. Any recommended modification shall be consistent with the intent of this article and shall be based on currently available scientific research.

(f) A qualified patient or a person holding a valid identification card, or the designated primary caregiver of that qualified patient or person, may possess amounts of marijuana consistent with this article.
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I suggest getting a good reference manual in order to squeeze as much cannabis as possible from only six mature plants. This one looked good. (And we all know how much diligence Lynda puts into reading rule books and following the rules.)

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And as she reaches out her hand for another stick of gold
The Kid, he gasps, "Damn it, bitch! There's nothin' left to roll!"

"NOTHIN' LEFT TO ROLL?!" screams Pearl. "IS THIS SOME TWISTED JOKE?"
"I DIDN'T COME HERE TO FUCK AROUND, MAN, I COME HERE TO SMOKE!"

And she reaches 'cross the table and grabs his bony sleeves
And crumbles his body between her hands, like dried and brittle leaves

Flicking out his teeth and bones like useless stems and seeds

And then she rolls him in a Zig-zag, and lights him like a roach
And the fastest man, with the fastest hands, goes up in a puff of smoke.

(From The Smokeoff, by Shel Silverstein)
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Business Activity Constitutes a Business Use (duh!)

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C'mon, Manteca - even Florida gets the concept of illegal business use! It is unacceptable to have Manteca's code enforcement group, the planning department, a P/R hack, a fuzzy-line city attorney, and all five city council buffoons* remain blind to common - and legal - definitions of business use.

credit: Chuck Pefley

In an appeals case decided last month, and described on the Law of the Land blog, the City of Miami charged Flava Works Inc with illegally operating a business within a residential zone (at least, generating the "raw" material - same as Allen & Brassey's operation?) Flava Works Inc claimed no business transactions took place at the location and, therefore, was exempt from the city's business ordinance. The City of Miami lost in trial court, but won on appeal, in Flava Works, Inc v. City of Miami (pdf).

I have taken the liberty of replacing names and pertinent phrases in the final portions of the issued opinion. The decision of the appellate court applies their legal logic, which logic happens to be the same as mine, but is systemically** missing in Manteca's leadership.

Flava Works [Manteca] argues that no business was being conducted at the 27th [810 Fishback] Street residence because no goods were bought or sold and nothing was manufactured on the premises. However, it can be reasonably asserted that raw video images [food inventories], which were later sold over the internet [off the catering trucks], were [delivered to and ice] created at the 27th [Fishback] Street residence. While t [T]hese images are not tangible goods, they have a commercial value and enable Flava Works [TLC Catering] to earn a profit. This seems to comport with the common definition of a business, which is "[a] commercial enterprise carried on for profit." Black's Law Dictionary 211 (8th ed. 2004).

The activities taking place at the 27th [Fishback] Street residence are part and parcel to Flava Work’s [TLC Catering's] business operations. The fact that certain aspects of the business are performed at other locations does not alter this analysis. Business objectives are the sole reason individuals are paid to live and engage in sexual [such] activities at the 27th [Fishback] Street residence. Flava Works [TLC Catering] would be unable to deliver content [retail product] to its subscribers [customers] without these endeavors. The activities taking place at the 27th [Fishback] Street residence are a clear violation of the prohibition against operating a business in a residential zone.

IV. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the district court’s [Manteca City Council's] grant of summary judgment to Flava Works denial of summary judgment to the City of Miami [Mr. Behling]. In reviewing this matter and hearing the arguments of counsel, the court considered simply holding that the district court [city council] erred in applying the law and remanding for further consideration. However, because there is no dispute in the facts, and in the interest of judicial economy, we have ruled as a matter of law that the City of Miami Code Enforcement Board's Final Administrative Order [Mr. Behling's finding] is due to be reinstated as to that part of the order holding that there was a violation of zoning ordinance 1572 [MMC 17.25] Illegally operating a business in a residential zone. Consequently, we REVERSE AND RENDER PARTIAL JUDGMENT in favor of the City of Miami [Mr. Behling] on the state law claim that Flava Works was [Manteca erred in allowing TLC Catering's] operating a business at the residence[.] , and REMAND for further proceedings on the constitutional claims.

Gee, does any of this sound at all familiar, Manteca City Hall? These three re-written paragraphs are merely advance copy of the judgment I expect to win against the City of Manteca in the near future.

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* buffoon (n) clown: a rude or vulgar fool; a person who amuses others by ridiculous behavior. A jester, joker, jokester, fool, wit-cracker, prankster or buffoon was a person employed to tell jokes and provide general entertainment, typically by a European monarch. (Surely, the voters of Manteca can do better than this.)

** systemic (adj) affecting an entire system; embedded within, spread throughout, and affecting an entire group, system, body, economy, market, society [or a whole city's leadership]; examples: "a systemic poison," or "Everyone front and center in the city council chambers is systemically infected with incurable buffoonery - or worse!"
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I CAN'T HEAR YOU! (aka, Shooting Yourself in the Foot)

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It is apparent my new occupation is comedy writer, a suggested title offered me by the author of the book, Neighbors From Hell. My inexhaustible source, the neighboring apple-colored sisters (Red, Yellow, and Green), provide a constantly-refreshing well of not only noise, lies and idiocy, but also...

stupid people tricks.

On Saturday at 08:40 hrs, the outdoor radio was turned on and cranked up more loudly than usual. Eighty-nine ear-splitting minutes later (10:09 hrs), the following hilarious exchange took place between Yellow and Green. Yellow was apparently rockin' out too close to the radio and suffered aural impairment from her own retaliatory noise nuisance device.

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Corky: {muffled...}

Lynda: What?

Corky: {a couple seconds.} {muffled...} the sprinkler?

Lynda: {brain cells burning. exasperated.} What, Green?

Corky: {still muffled...} the sprinklers.

Lynda: I can't hear you! {The eff'n radio is too loud!}

Corky: {yelling} You need to change the sprinklers!

Lynda: Oh. OK.

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Ya gotta love dopes like this - the same exceedingly clever neanderthals* who turned the radio on for ONE MINUTE at 07:06 hrs that same morning. Actually, they were beginning their usual daily noise harrassment, but some of my friends showed up right then... and the BDGs don't like witnesses to their amentia.** Sorta makes you wonder,

"What's going to happen when they shoot themselves in the OTHER bare foot?"

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* neanderthal (n) boor, lout, oaf, swine, piggy, prehistoric ("grandfathered" grandmothers?); ill-mannered and coarse and contemptible in behavior or appearance.

** amentia (n) idiocy; extreme mental retardation

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