A meet and greet with a medical marijuana collective that hopes to open a dispensary in Forest Knolls ended up spurring 35 or 40 letters of opposition to the county and sign an online petition against the proposal.
Residents’ concerns revolve around the impact on children passing by, safety and crime, traffic, parking, the future of The Farm Stand—which occupies space the collective had hoped to operate in—and the background of the man who is interested in buying the property: Matthew Shotwell, a reality TV star.
An attorney for the collective, Natalia Thurston, was unavailable for comment on Wednesday but provided the Light with a seven-page letter she sent to the county. Her letter responds to concerns and accusations—as well as what she characterized as misinformation and hostility—that have arisen around the project. It also states that the collective is now considering amending its application to locate the dispensary at the back of the property.
As part of the county’s recent legalization of storefront dispensaries in unincorporated Marin, the collective, called Forest Knolls Wellness, applied this summer for a license. The county could license up to four dispensaries, two in West Marin and two in eastern Marin, though it can also approve fewer.
The directors of the collective are Kip Baldwin, Brian Hilliard and Linda Delair. (Mr. Shotwell is not a director.) In applying for a permit, they received permission from the building’s owner: LBBC, LLC, operated by former San Geronimo Valley resident and organic dairywoman Rebecca Lepori and her two brothers, Robert and Larry Yerion.
In the last couple of years, Ms. Lepori and her siblings have considered selling the property, a fact she said she made clear to her tenants. The Farm Stand, owned by Jim Baum, opened there over two years ago; Garageland, a vintage shop, opened about a year ago; and the espresso bar fired up this year. Together they’ve created a more vibrant scene than the property has had for some time.
Ms. Lepori has fielded interest in a purchase of the site from a number of parties, she said—many not a good fit. “I can’t tell you how many appointments I had…with someone who couldn’t tell me who the client was.” But she said she has had a positive experience with the collective and Mr. Shotwell. “
The reason why we have been involved with Matt and Natalia is because of the full transparency of their intentions since the beginning. There hasn’t been any secrecy,” she said.
On social media, valley residents have criticized Mr. Shotwell’s past ventures. He once operated a medical marijuana dispensary in Vallejo, which, along with others in that county, was raided by the police. Charges were dropped against all of them. He also starred in two reality television shows on the Discovery Channel: Weed Country and Breaking Bud. In a trailer for Breaking Bud, he describes itself as a “ganjapreneur” with a “chrontourage” who travel in a bus called the Cannabus.
The online petition, which is critical of dispensaries in the valley, said this week’s meet and greet was only “publicized with flyers handed out door to door to a few homes in the vicinity of the proposed location.”
Ms. Lepori said she has made repeated efforts to inform residents about the potential for a dispensary. She walked the neighborhood during the day for three days in a row in July. “Everyone I spoke to in July was for it,” she said, though she also noted that some people may not have been home. She added that earlier this month, on Oct. 16, she handed out 41 flyers about the meet and greet and posted one inside Garageland. Ms. Thurston also sent out some invitations.
But Ms. Lepori said she did not advertise it too widely, and that it was also intended to be the first in a series to gauge community concerns in advance of the county’s public review process.
She also said inaccurate information was circulating about the proposal: for instance, that there would be bars on the windows, that patients could smoke on the premises, or that plants would grow there. The online petition also claimed that at one point in the meeting, Ms. Thurston “decided to close the meet and greet as she was not happy with how it was going.”
Ms. Thurston’s letter disputes that, claiming that some people showed up as the three-hour meeting was ending. She said these individuals “approached Ms. Lepori in a very hostile and aggressive manner demanding to know who was behind the dispensary application.”
Since the meeting, people have expressed concerns about the impact to The Farm Stand and whether it would actually be feasible for it to move to another space on the property. (The Farm Stand’s owner, Jim Baum, declined to comment for this article.)
The dispensary’s original plan was to move into the space where The Farm Stand is now located and then reconfigure the other businesses, using the Garageland space and an unused space in the back. But because of concerns about children, the collective is now considering keeping The Farm Stand in place and locating the dispensary in the back.