Jaquan Smith, 12, likes the Los Angeles Lakers and afternoons filled with video games.

But his face has aged just a bit beyond his years. He wears a look of concerned solemnity more often than most.

Like thousands of Richmond children, Smith has lost his parents to crime and incarceration.

“I wish my mom could be with me every day,” Smith said while coolly thumbing a videogame controller at a community center in Parchester Village, where he lives with family friends. “But I know that’s not going to happen.”

Earlier this year, in May, Jaquan took a bus to San Leandro, where he linked up with three siblings who stay with family in San Francisco. They boarded another bus in the pre-dawn light, then trekked though more than 100 miles of Central  Valley haze to see their mom.

It was their Mother’s Day. They spent it in Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla.

At least 200,000 children in California – including Jaquan and his three sisters, 14-year-old Tajanae Jacobs and two 10-year-old twins – have a parent serving time in state prison, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). The children are scattered across the state, often living with relatives, friends or foster families.

California’s overall inmate population has reached 175,000 – larger than the population of Hayward. The number of female prisoners has nearly tripled, to 10,200, since 1987, according to CDCR, which estimates the number of children of incarcerated parents at 200,000; some experts believe the figure is higher.

Almost none of the state’s $8 billion prison budget is dedicated to the children of prisoners or helping them maintain contact with their parents. A 2005 study published in the Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice found that maintaining the relationship between an inmate and child significantly reduces recidivism. According to a 2009 CDCR estimate, 42 percent of California’s female inmates commit crimes within two years of their release.

Jaquan’s mother was sent to prison six years ago, convicted of robbery and drug possession in Richmond. Jaquan was 6-years-old at the time and his father was also in-and-out of jail. The boy bounced between relatives in Los Angeles and, most recently, a family friend in Richmond. He said he’s changed schools at least three times.

Jaquan hopes he can stay in Richmond until his mom’s release in December 2015.

During the two-hour bus trip in May, Jaquan chatted with other children and scrawled in coloring books. This was the fourth year he rode a Mother’s Day bus – funded by a nonprofit program – to the Valley State Prison for Women.

“The hardest part is having to go, having to say goodbye to your mom,” Jaquan said.

Upon arrival at the prison, a complex of drab structures jutting out from the central California plains, and Jaquan and dozens of other children filed down a line of seated corrections officers who checked IDs and birth certificates. They then walked through the metal detectors and passed through the buzz and clang of the mechanized gates buttressed with razor wire. Guard towers loomed overhead.

Jaquan and his three sisters were led to a large multipurpose room with dozens of other visitors where they waited for their mother.

A few hours earlier their mother, Saprina Fletcher, 38, had risen from her bed in the cell she shares with more than a half-dozen inmates. Fletcher’s eyelids were heavy; she hadn’t slept. “I stayed up all night thinking about this visit,” she said. “I was overwhelmed, wondering what I’m going to say to my kids.”

Now, Fletcher, still weary, emerged from a hallway.

“Mama! Mama!” the twins shrieked as they bolted towards Fletcher, joined by Tajanae and Jaquan, who initially held back.

“I couldn’t move for a second,” Jaquan recalled later, at the community center in Parchester. “I was so excited to see her.”

For the next four hours, Fletcher played games with her kids. The twins got their faces painted. Tajanae bought sugary and salty snacks for the briefly re-united family. Jaquan talked about his favorite subjects in school.

When the day was nearly done, Fletcher walked a few paces away from the outdoor table where they had been sitting. In her prison blues, she looked older than her 38 years. She stared at her children.

“I’m afraid,” she said, her normally commanding voice much softer. “My fear is that I will never bond with them.”

Fletcher paused. She looked down, then up again.

“My fear is being forgotten.”

Fletcher’s absence weighs heavy on her children’s lives, particularly for Jaquan, who finds himself alone, repeatedly uprooted and uncertain of the future.

Weeks after visiting his mom, Jaquan was hanging out at the community center in Parchester Village, and said he knows there will probably be more changes to his already uprooted life. “It’s hard,” he said. “You make friends, then you got to go and you might not see them again.”

When his mother is released in 5 years, Jaquan will be 17.

“Sometimes I dream about me and my mom,” Jaquan said. “We still be living together, we were never separated, and I don’t have to be living in all kinds of different houses and places.”

Editor’s Note: This story, video and photos were produced by Robert Rogers and Guilherme Kfouri as part of News21, a national journalism initiative led by 12 of America’s leading research universities, including UC Berkeley. To see additional photos and hear interviews with inmates and officials, visit A Close Look at Racial Politics Behind Bars

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California’s sprawling prison system, the nation’s largest, retains deep racial divisions five years after a court-mediated settlement set in motion a plan to limit race-based cell assigning practices.

In 2005, the United States Supreme Court decreed that racial classification alone may not dictate cell assignments for new or newly-transferred inmates in California’s prisons, but today inmates are still housed mostly along racial lines.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) implemented an integrated housing program at Folsom State Prison in Sacramento County five months ago, but a snapshot of the historic outdoor yard yields no clue of any change in the racial climate. “It looks like a normal situation, calm and peaceful,” said Steve Novikoff, a 22-year veteran corrections officer, while fixing a squinted gaze on the yard in June. “But at a moment’s notice we can have violence.”

Racial groups command slices of territory. Black inmates play chess and work out on a stand of iron bars. Whites hold a spot just a few steps away, where they exercise or mill about in clusters. On opposite sides of the oval, Native Americans and northern and southern California Hispanics lay claim to their turf. The thud of handball and basketball courts pops above the din of voices.

“These boundaries have been determined by the inmate population,” said Folsom spokesman Lieutenant Anthony Gentile.

A section of the yard at Folsom State Prison controlled by African American inmates.

In interviews, more than a dozen inmates said integrated housing, which began here in February, amounted to plenty of hype, but no change. “The racial politics here won’t change,” said Ernie Santillan, 50, who is serving an eight-year sentence for drug sales. “The tiers [cell blocks] are already integrated, but the cells, no way.”

Gentile noted that racial tensions among inmates rose during an education period before the policy’s implementation, which included questionnaires, town hall meetings and interviews. “Initially, it was very tense,” Gentile said, “A lot of the inmates believed that we are going to basically shuffle the deck and we were just going to start forcing these guys [together].”

Inmates generally agreed. “In the short run, you would be dealing with a lot of lockdowns and a lot of hospital trips,” said a Native American inmate who would identify himself only by his last name, “Allen.”

Instead of forcibly integrating cell blocks, the California corrections department has adopted a cautious, go-slow approach that critics say falls short of integrating housing. CDCR says their approach is the best way to satisfy the agreement, which mandates only that race cannot be a sole determining factor in how inmates are housed.

“Much goes on behind our prison walls that is not consistent with the Constitution,” said Donald Specter, chief counsel at the Bay Area-based Prison Law Office. “There should not be continuing racial segregation by the government in any area of our society, including prison.”

The state initially opposed the lawsuit that brought the Supreme Court ruling, which was brought by Garrison Johnson, a black inmate who alleged that segregating reception center cells violated his right to equal protection under the 14th Amendment.

Today, CDCR officials say they agree in principle with the court decision, the result of which has been the “Integrated Housing Program.” CDCR says the program ensures that inmate housing assignments are made using “rational objective criteria,”  which takes into consideration inmates’ safety, security, treatment and rehabilitative needs.

“We began implementing integrated housing in 2008, and our intention has been to roll out gradually,” said CDCR spokeswoman Terry Thornton, in Sacramento.

The process has been anything but swift. The policy has been implemented in four of the state’s 30 male facilities.

CDCR is unable to provide data about the percentage of cells that have been racially integrated so far.

“We are not tracking [racially integrated cells]. That’s not how we are going to measure success,” Thornton said, adding that each inmate has been assigned an “integrated housing code” based on several factors other than race, such as offense, behavior and associations.

In Richmond, where police say about 400 active parolees live and thousands more residents and former residents have spent time in state prisons, those who have seen the inside are skeptical about the plan. “I think the pressures of the convict code and the gang code will make it difficult,” said Kevin Kemp, 50, a local musician who was recently released from San Quentin after 19 years. “The divisions on the inside are so ingrained. It started, I think, as a divide and conquer approach, but now it’s got a life of its own among the inmates.”

But to critics, abolishing an antiquated system of racial sorting has been too long in coming, and the process itself has been too slow. “It’s not a simple problem, but progress could be faster,” said Barry Krisberg, a senior fellow at the UC Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice. “How can we continue to condone overt segregation in any [state-supported] accommodations?”

The Texas comparison

In the early 1970s, the Texas prison system still resembled something out of the Antebellum South. Work crews, dining halls, cells and other accommodations were segregated based on skin color.

But the system changed when challenged by Allen Lamar, a career criminal who filed suit in 1972 against the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ). He alleged systemic segregation deprived inmates of rights guaranteed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Lamar, who is black, argued that segregation resulted in inherently unequal treatment of prisoners.

The case was decided in Lamar’s favor five years later, in 1977. But it wasn’t until 1991 that the Texas prison system began forcibly integrating cells.

“When the rubber meets the road, the question is whether you have buy-in across the structure,” said James Marquart, co-author of First Available Cell, a book on Texas’ integration. “Everyone within the system has to be on board. There has to be buy-in from all the interests. In Texas, it took over 20 years to get done.”

In California, where inmates are not forced to integrate, broad support appears to be lacking, according to many inmates and staff. “The CDCR won’t talk to us,” said Ryan Sherman, a spokesman for the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA), the union representing prison staff. “We have no say as to how this process should be implemented.”

Also important, Marquart said, Texas’ abolishment of segregation coincided with growth in prison capacity. The state added about 60 institutions in the 1980s and 1990s. With space to separate racial agitators, other inmates could integrate without fear of reprisal.

In California, overcrowded conditions present another obstacle. In Texas, about 160,000 inmates are distributed throughout more than 120 facilities. Most of California’s 33 prisons are already well beyond capacity. “If you’re not going to build, it’s not going to get done,” Marquart said.

In interviews, inmates and staff at Mule Creek and Folsom prisons in late June expressed fear that forced integration would trigger bloodshed. Such sentiments were also widespread in pre-integration Texas, but were never borne out. During the first seven years after cell integration, violent assaults reported among integrated cellmates were lower than non-integrated, according to TDCJ statistics.

From 1990 through 1999 there were a total of 35,579 violent incidents in Texas prisons. Out of those, 1,691, or 4.7 percent, were racially-motivated. Of those, 1,358 (3.8 percent) were among inmates who were not racially-integrated. Less than one percent of the nearly 36,000 incidents recorded during the period were between integrated cell partners, according to TDCJ.

Michael Parks has seen integration programs in both Texas and now California state prisons.

The numbers don’t surprise Michael Parks, 46, an African American inmate at Folsom. Parks first did time in Texas prisons. “[In Texas] you don’t have a say-so who your celly is,” said Parks, who is serving a life sentence for second degree murder. “You move into a cell, and whatever race the guy is, you learn to live with him.” At Folsom, Parks said he has been housed only with blacks.

In Texas, the TDCJ reports that 62 percent of its double-occupancy cells are now integrated.

“Integrating prisons has tended to have the same sort of effect as integrating schools,” said Robert Perkinson, a University of Hawaii history professor and author of Texas Tough, a history of that state’s prison system. “After initial fears, violence instead is reduced, people get along better, racial lines dissipate.”

An unwritten legacy

Garrison Johnson is a notorious name in California corrections. Johnson, an African American inmate in state prisons since 1987, filed the lawsuit that ultimately drew the Supreme Court’s attention to segregated cells.

During inter-institutional transfers over the years, Johnson shared cells only with other black inmates.

In his 1995 lawsuit, Johnson argued that race-based housing “effectively erected whites only, blacks only, Hispanics only signs over the portals of the California prison system.”

After winding through lower courts, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that even temporarily segregating inmates by race is constitutionally suspect and should be subject to tight judicial scrutiny. The court, in a 5-3 decision, reasoned that in the absence of a justification that is “narrowly tailored” – such as achieving prison safety when other methods are insufficient – housing based solely on race is legally indefensible.

Justice Clarence Thomas, the only black justice, was joined by Antonin Scalia and John Paul Stevens in dissent, although Stevens’ dissent argued that segregation is always unconstitutional. Thomas and Scalia argued that the court should not interfere with prison officials on matters of race.  “The Constitution has always demanded less within the prison walls,” Thomas reasoned.

Segregation in cells in California had its beginnings in the 1960s and 1970s, experts say, when a combination of prison population growth, slashed rehabilitative programs and increasingly race-based prison gangs persuaded administrators to accept de facto segregation in double-celling, or two inmates to a cell. This practice was never formally proclaimed.

“You would get a group of inmates, just off the bus, all the paperwork not caught up, and there were decisions to make, sometimes based on race,” CDCR spokeswoman Thornton said. “It was just a desire to keep people from killing each other. It was never a policy, never written down. But it was done, we’re not going to deny that.”

Asked if the segregation of cells later helped fuel the rise of racial hostility between racial groups, Thornton said she did not know, but that CDCR is “hopeful in-cell integration will assist in gang management, reduce racial tension and violence and reflect community values.”

Some inmates and critics were adamant that racial animosities have been deepened by corrections policy, and demand more forceful action. “Going into prison in California has, for decades, meant getting inculcated with an extremely racist mentality,” said Krisberg, the senior fellow in criminal justice.

Jesse Reed, a Richmond resident, saw the culture up close for 25 years, mostly in San Quentin State prison, before his release last year. He said he doubts whether integrated housing can be successful. “I just can’t see where it’s going to work,” Reed said. “When you put people together in a living situation, every act of violence is going to become a racial conflict that gets people upset and lining up on both sides.”

Will California cells be integrated?

CDCR hopes to begin integrating housing at two more prisons this year – the Correctional Training Facility in Soledad and Avenal State Prison – and three more in 2011.

Not all of the approximately 165,000 state prison inmates would be eligible. Many live in dormitories including several races. Others, such as Pelican Bay inmates, are judged to be so dangerous that they are housed alone.

Thornton says the CDCR has no statistics on roommate assignments because it does not “track the number of single- or double-celled inmates or how many are in dorms.”

Nevertheless, achieving race-blind integration would probably require reassigning thousands of inmates. More than half of surveyed inmates system-wide were found to be eligible for living in integrated cells, according to department statistics.

CDCR says it doesn’t have all the resources it needs to implement desegregation in all prisons any faster.

“The state has no budget, so there is no money for traveling and training of staff,” Thornton said, adding that CDCR cannot quantify the costs of the program. “It’s like asking how much it costs to fingerprint [inmates],” she said.

At the same time, CDCR officials have sought to curb expectations. “It’s unrealistic to think that all cells are going to be integrated,” Thornton said.

The go-slow approach may have helped keep the lid on a volatile situation. Not a single incident of racial violence attributed to housing integration has been reported after the program was implemented, Thornton said, although there was a brief, nonviolent protest at Sierra Conservation Center in 2008, and violent eruptions at Folsom and Chino Institution for Men last year, before the program was implemented at either institution.

But concerns linger. In a letter addressed to CDCR’s Secretary Matthew Cate, in mid-July the Prison Law Office urged the department to take immediate action to stop discrimination based on race.

According to the letter, California’s men’s facilities consistently conduct prison lockdowns based on individuals within racial groups, even if the incident that triggered them involved only a small number of inmates of that race, amounting to a “disturbing policy and practice of racial discrimination within the prison system in violation of the Equal Protection Clause”. The Law Office alleges that disturbances sometimes result in lockdowns of all inmates of a particular racial group.

Prison officials said the PLO is using an expanded definition of the term “lockdown,” making basic security measures seem more severe and disruptive than they are.

Thornton stressed that occasional, “modified” security lockdowns on certain populations are “operational necessities” to maintain safety behind the prison walls.

“We are going to review the claims made by the Prison Law Office,” Thornton said, adding, “We have policies in place to prohibit the use of race based lockdown targeting a specific racial or ethnic group unless there is a legitimate interest in doing so.”

Thornton said the department could not say whether the modified lockdowns were used with greater, declining or similar frequency compared to past years.

At Folsom, several inmates alleged that staff spread misinformation about integrated housing to stir unrest last year, before the program was implemented. Lt. Gentile acknowledged that swirling rumors fanned tensions leading up to the disturbance last year – which inmates described as a “riot” – but denied that staff deliberately planted them.

“There was confusion among a lot of staff and inmates as well, a lot anxiousness,” Gentile said. “There was some bad choice of wording and bad interpretations.”

At Mule Creek, the reality of integrated housing is a mix of progress and persistent division. Mule Creek, which announced double-cell integration as policy 2008, is a “special needs” facility, where many inmates are overt homosexuals or targets for violent reprisals from members of their own racial group.

The dry-erase board on the wall of one housing wing lists 100 cells. The colors that corrections officers use to identify race indicate that 31 were racially-integrated in late June. That’s about half of the integration rate reported for the Texas prison system as a whole.

Out of earshot of prison officials, several inmates at Mule Creek said the housing integration initiative was ineffective. Some said integrated cells were predominately the result of mixed-race homosexual relationships.

“If you take homosexuals out of it, probably like two percent of cells are black and white,” said inmate Frank Baldizan, 30. “Me? I cell with my own race.”

Editor’s Note: This story, video and photos were produced by Robert Rogers and Guilherme Kfouri as part of News21, a national journalism initiative led by 12 of America’s leading research universities, including UC Berkeley.

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He was free, again. But Anthony Woods’ days outside the walls would be numbered.

Three months after being imprisoned for missing parole appointments and failing drug tests, a corrections bus scooped him up from San Quentin State Prison and dumped him a few blocks from his mother’s home in Richmond, just off Cutting Boulevard. He looked down as he walked at first, watching one foot step in front of the other. It didn’t take long to slip.

“I remember thinking ‘Don’t look up, just go straight home,’” Woods said. But on the walk from bus stop to mom’s house, he couldn’t elude his long time tormenter: crack cocaine.

“I had a few bucks. It was burning a hole in my pocket,” Woods said. “This is a neighborhood that’s infested.” He shook his head. “I can’t walk two blocks without the opportunity being there.”

Woods has two felonies on his record stemming from an armed robbery in the early 1980s. He’s been on parole ever since. First released in 1986, Woods has been in and out of California prisons at least 17 times according to prison records, mostly for dirty drug tests, missed appointments and “technical violations” of his parole.

Woods is just one of a group – tens of thousands strong – of ex-convicts paroled in California every year. They often face bleak prospects for employment and debilitating drug addictions. About 400 reside in Richmond, a city long plagued by crime.

More than 70 percent of the time, they prove unable to comply with the terms of their parole.

“A lot of our ongoing crime is committed by folks who are recidivists,” said Richmond Police Chief Chris Magnus. “Budget cuts for important programs inside prisons mean that inmates land on our streets often worse off than they were when they went in.”

Last year, more than 66,000 paroled felons in California were returned to custody without being convicted of a crime. The violations that land them back in prison include failing drug tests and missed appointments with parole agents.

Woods has been on parole for more than 20 years.

“They go in, they spend on average about two months, they continue to get released, they’re out about an average of four to six months, they’re back in,” said Joan Petersilia, a law professor at Stanford. “Prisoners on the inside refer to this as ‘doing life on the installment plan.’”

The number of parolees returning the streets is on the rise, thanks to the state’s attempt to reduce prison overcrowding. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitiation (CDCR) is working to reduce its population to comply with a ruling last year by a three-judge federal panel, which decided that overcrowding in state prisons contributes to unconstitutional conditions.

State law SB3×18, which took effect in January, released parolees convicted of non-violent crimes from traditional parole supervision. The new law aims to lower the costs of imprisoning and supervising convicts who pose little threat.

As part of the reform, parole agents are handling reduced caseloads while thousands of gang members and other felons have been put on electronic tracking devices as an alternative to incarceration.

“It’s estimated that about 10,000 people who would have gone to prison last year will not go to prison this year,” Petersilia said.

Meanwhile, those who do go to prison continue to face lengthy sentences, Petersilia said.

Before the mid-1970s, prison sentences were indeterminate, Petersilia said, so inmates could be released earlier than their original sentence if they completed vocational or academic classes in addition to good behavior. Now, sentencing reforms have resulted in “determinant” sentences, Petersilia said, which has resulted in inmates receiving guaranteed release dates, despite cuts in rehabilitation programs leaving them ill-prepared to return to society.

Woods, with his robbery convictions from the early 1980s, still qualifies as a two-striker and as a parolee who could pose a threat. Due to his ongoing “technical violations” and misdemeanors like shoplifting, Woods is still on parole more than two decades after his original crimes.

Recidivism has been a major driver of skyrocketing corrections costs, which gobble up about 11 percent of the state budget, or roughly $8 billion — more than the state spends on higher education. The state spends about $49,500 per year to house each prisoner, Petersilia said.

Stanford professor Joan Petersilia, one of the state's foremost experts on parole.

More than seven in 10 parolees return to prison within three years in California, the nation’s worst rate, according to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s office.

“A major part of what determines whether a parolee will be successful or not is employment,” said Theodore Pacheco, a parole agent who has worked specifically with Woods’ case. “We show them the vocational, educational and drug treatment opportunities available to them when they get out.”

Woods says he has no special skills and hasn’t held a steady job since he worked as a grocery clerk in the late 1990s. His lengthy criminal record scares off potential employers, he said.

In July, Pacheco remanded Woods to custody barely a month after his release, claiming that he had missed several appointments and tested positive for drugs. Woods spent more than two weeks in custody, including a trip back to San Quentin State Prison for just a few days, where he said he went through a familiar battery of intake processes.

Stories like Woods’ are a big part of California’s corrections crisis, said Barry Krisberg, a senior fellow at the Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice. “We’re just recycling people over and over and over through this system,” Krisberg said. “And a lot of them for fairly minor offenses, who continue to have drug problems or whatever, and we lock them up for 90 days, which costs a lot of money and does not advance public safety.”

According to CDCR records, of 84,882 paroled felons who were returned to prison last year, 66,261 were returned for violating conditions of their parole, not for committing new crimes.

“This makes no sense,” Petersilia said. “Unfortunately we don’t have the political will to change it because there will be a parolee … now out on parole and they’ll miss an appointment or test positive and we won’t send them back to prison and they’ll murder someone.”

The California Rehabilitation Oversight Board (C-ROB) issued a report in March warning that cuts to already stripped-down educational and vocational programs in state prisons jeopardize efforts to reduce prison populations. “The recent budget cut to inmate programming may well mean that the hope for reduction in recidivism will not be achieved any time soon. Without some reduction in the parole return rate it seems likely that California will be unable to get control of the inmate population crisis,” the report read.

Woods supports his habit by doing odd jobs around the community.

Recidivism wasn’t always an intractable problem. In 1980, only about one of four parolees ended up back in prison, a ratio that has more than doubled. A 2003 report from the Little Hoover Commission, an independent state oversight agency, brought California corrections’ recidivism problem to the fore when it showed that most parolees were returned to prison for technical violations, memorably calling the system a “billion-dollar failure.”

Back in Richmond, Woods has little hope that any reform may affect him. He said he is resigned to a life of cycling in and out of prison. The reason? He has no illusions about ceasing his use of crack cocaine.

“I don’t see how I’ll ever quit,” he said, rolling a small, glass crack pipe between his thumb and forefinger, adding that he wishes he could stop.

Moments later, he’s ambling off to a liquor store on the corner near his mother’s home. Within minutes, he scores $8 worth of crack cocaine – a small bag with two BB-sized rocks pressed into a handshake – some of which he quickly loads into his pipe.

He takes refuge in a nearby park. He squats behind some weathered bleachers, which shelter him from a mild breeze.

He reasons that because he smoked crack on the day of his release, he would already “test dirty” if required by parole to submit urine. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” he said, lowering the glass pipe into the orange flame of his cigarette lighter. “If they want to send me back, what can I do?”

This story originally published on UC Berkeley’s News21 site.

Despite pleas from the owners and patrons of Richmond’s medical marijuana dispensaries, the city council decided Monday during a special, closed session to continue with court cases aimed at shutting down the city’s pot clubs.

Each of the city’s eight dispensaries have been faced with cease-and-desist orders from city prosecutors, who say that because Richmond doesn’t currently have rules on the books to govern or properly zone pot dispensaries, the shops are operating without permits, and therefore illegally.

The city council passed a first draft of an ordinance last week that will eventually set the framework for legally obtaining a license to sell medical marijuana within city limits; however that likely won’t be finalized until September at the earliest, and wouldn’t go into effect until November or December.

Once the city’s new ordinance takes effect, Richmond will be limited to only three dispensaries. New shops can only be opened in commercially zoned parts of town, and managers and shopkeepers will have to submit to a criminal background check before the city can issue them a marijuana business license. Berkeley and Oakland already have similar limits on medical cannabis shops in place.

Dispensary managers and owners had asked for the council to put off its litigation against them until the new laws go into effect. Mayor Gayle McLaughlin suggested during last week’s last regular council meeting that city prosecutors could ease off the dispensaries until the new marijuana ordinance becomes law. The council’s special meeting Monday was solely devoted to discussing whether to drop the court cases. However it appears McLaughlin didn’t have enough support on the council Monday to officially change the city’s stance.

When reached for comment, Councilman Jim Rogers, who has pushed for stricter oversight of the dispensaries, declined to elaborate on the council’s decision, citing that the conversation took place in closed session.

But the council’s unchanged position came as no surprise to Rebecca Vasquez, the director of the marijuana dispensary Holistic Healing Collective in Point Richmond. “Everybody knew the answer already,” Vasquez said of the special closed-session meeting. “It was a waste of time. [The council] should have just taken their vacation already.”

Vasquez, who came to Richmond from Sacramento to start her shop, said she is shutting down the collective, but plans to re-open elsewhere. “I wouldn’t want to be in this city,” she said. “It’s not good for a business. People told me not to go to Richmond, and that’s what I get for coming here. I thought it would be different.”

The legality of Richmond’s medical marijuana dispensaries has come under fire over the last year or so, as the city witnessed a sudden influx in new pot businesses. Of the eight dispensaries that have been served with the cease-and-desist orders, at least five opened within the last 12 months.

Last December, the city issued a moratorium on new dispensaries. Sometime this spring, dispensary owners say, the city began issuing the cease-and-desist orders, while the council began pondering official regulations on the cash-heavy businesses.

At one point, the council agreed on a draft of a pot ordinance that would allow for an unlimited number of dispensaries in town, with fewer restrictions on where they could operate. However a backlash of opposition to the ordinance—including a widely circulated e-mail from Police Chief Chris Magnus that was critical of the draft ordinance—led to a dramatic revision of the rules, with the three-dispensary cap inserted along with a host of other changes.

The revised draft will undergo a second vote, scheduled for the third week of September, before going into effect. City residents will also vote on a ballot measure this November asking whether the city should impose a 5 percent sales tax on all marijuana sales.

In an effort to build community and prevent crime, the City of Richmond celebrated the 27th annual National Night Out Tuesday with block parties throughout the city. The city joined 35 million citizens around the country in celebration.

Police officers and firefighters visited 24 different neighborhoods across Richmond that were holding block parties. City officials including Police Chief Chris Magnus, Mayor Gayle McLaughlin, City Manager Bill Lindsay and Fire Chief Michael Banks attended the kick-off ceremony and party held at the Target Store on Macdonald Avenue.

The event offered music performances by The East Bay Center for the Performing Arts, free hot dogs and hamburgers, and an appearance by the Richmond Fire Department’s demo unit, which showed kids what to do in case of a fire. A bounce house and the free face-painting clowns were also very popular.

“What a pleasure it is to know that our crime prevention is working in the city of Richmond. This is a tribute to a collective effort in the city,” said Mayor McLaughlin, referring to the city’s decreasing crime rate. “People are working together and the city needs more of that.”

For Chief Chris Magnus, the event was a great opportunity for residents to connect with the police, because “really we solve crimes through relationship-building,” he said. Magnus also mentioned the importance of neighbors working together to help prevent crime. “The police can’t be everywhere all the time, so it pays to have in the neighborhood folks that are looking out for each other.”

Additionally, Fire Chief Banks said, “National Night out gives us an opportunity to send our message of fire safety throughout the city.”

Other community organizations and business were also represented at the Target parking lot block party. For instance, nonprofit Building Blocks for Kids, the Contra Costa County Conflict Resolution Program and Target all had tables at the event, where people were giving out information about their organizations and handing out trinkets.

City officials were also available to talk with residents. The elected officials left, however, to go on a community caravan along with police officers and firefighters to tour some of the other neighborhood block parties throughout the city. The tour gave the police officers an opportunity to get reacquainted with the residents of their beat. As residents heard the sirens of police cars and fire engines approaching their party, they clapped in excitement.

Each neighborhood found its own way to connect with the community, and each party had its own feel. The Marina Bay block party at 1 Marina Lakes Drive set out tables hosted by the different condominium committees from the complex and encouraged residents to visit so people could walk around and get information on the different committees. They had cookies, coffee and fliers with information.

The Richmond Heights block party at Tiller Park organized a potluck with music, hot dogs and kids’ attractions such as a face-painting fairy and residents dressed up as cartoon characters Winnie the Pooh, Gossamer and Belle (from The Beauty and the Beast.)

“It’s good to see everyone in the community getting together and having a good time and see the police and fire department too,” said Belle, played by neighborhood resident Elizabeth Thompson. “It is a lot of fun.”

“Anytime you bring people together is important,” said Michael Rogers, a Richmond Heights resident. “When police get to talk with the neighbors, I think it’s great.”

This evening 24 neighborhoods in Richmond will join National Night Out, an annual nationwide event in which the community partners with the police to promote crime prevention. Neighborhoods will host block parties so that residents can get to know one another and work together to promote peace and safety.

In 2009, National Night Out involved over 36 million people in 14,625 communities from all 50 states in the United States, as well as its territories, and some Canadian cities and military bases worldwide. National Night Out 2010 is expected to be the largest ever, according to the National Association of Town Watch, the nonprofit and crime prevention organization that introduced the event in 1984.

Police women at Richmond Heights block party on National Night Out 2009. Photo courtesy of Mandy Swirsding.

“Richmond has been celebrating this event for at least 20 years,” said Michelle Milam, crime prevention manager for the Richmond Police Department. “Without the help and participation of our residents working with us, we can truly never be effective resolving crime.”

This year the kick-off party will start at the Target Store on Macdonald Avenue at 5 pm.  There will be balloon artists, face painting, free hot dogs and hamburgers, police K-9 demonstrations, appearances by the Richmond Fire Department demo unit and McGruff the Crime Dog and live performances by The East Bay Center for the Performing Arts.

“Neighbors will get the chance to pick up good food, and pick up literature form the neighborhood council or the neighborhood watch group or the police department,” said Milam

The celebration will then break into three caravans made up of law enforcement, community and elected officials who will visit a dozen block parties in the city’s three geographic police beats. After touring neighborhood parties throughout the city the caravan will gather again at the Iron Triangle Community Garden on the corner of Macdonald and Harbour Way around 8:30 pm for an end party.

According to Milan in Richmond each neighborhood works very hard to plan their block party. “We have really great neighborhoods in Richmond and they are great because the people make them great,” she said.

A week after throwing its support behind a medical marijuana ordinance that many saw as one of the most pot-friendly in the area, Richmond’s City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to scratch a number of the ordinance’s most controversial clauses. In a separate move, the council agreed to allow city voters to decide on a new pot tax.

Mayor Gayle McLaughlin, along with Councilmembers Nat Bates, Jeff Ritterman and Jim Rogers, all reversed course on a number of key aspects of the pot ordinance Tuesday that they had insisted on during their July 20 meeting, agreeing instead to pass a modified ordinance that will cap the number of marijuana dispensaries in town to three, and place new restrictions on how and where such clubs can operate.

“It’s harder to shrink back than to expand [the ordinance],” McLaughlin said Tuesday in defending her about-face, explaining that last week’s first reading of the ordinance was too lax.

In a separate move later in the evening, the council voted to place a November ballot measure before city voters asking whether to charge dispensaries a 5 percent tax on all marijuana sales.

Tuesday’s move to amend the city’s medical marijuana ordinance represents a substantial beefing up of the ordinance’s original rules, which some anticipated would turn Richmond into a regional hub for pot sales.

The version of the medical marijuana ordinance that was originally passed 4-3 by the council July 20 did not place a cap on the number of dispensaries allowed within city limits. It also placed the responsibility for granting medical marijuana business licenses to the city manager’s office, and limited medical pot shops to parts of town designated as commercial zones.

All of those stipulations were amended Tuesday: The Richmond Police Department will now oversee permitting and code enforcement for the three permitted marijuana dispensaries, and marijuana clubs will now only be allowed in C-3 commercial zones like the Hilltop Mall – effectively eliminating a number of current dispensaries from consideration for one of the new licenses.

Additionally, the council made amendments Tuesday that restrict patients to purchasing a maximum of one ounce of marijuana from a dispensary per visit, and stipulated that applicants for a marijuana license be scored on a point system, which has yet to be devised.

“This is a disaster,” said John Clay, who runs Pacific Alternative Health Center, a Point Richmond-based dispensary. “The level of ignorance on the council is staggering.”

Every ordinance the council passes must go through two readings before being enacted into law. While most ordinances are approved on second reading with ease, it appears that an avalanche of public feedback swayed the council into revising the ordinance this time. Because of the breadth of Tuesday’s revisions, the newly approved ordinance will have to go through a second reading, scheduled for the third week of September. The council takes its yearly recess during August.

On his popular e-forum, Councilman Tom Butt earlier this week sent followers a letter to the city council from Police Chief Chris Magnus that asked that the council to reconsider it’s initial plans for the ordinance – particularly handing oversight of the process to the city manager’s office instead of the police. On Tuesday, McLaughlin cited Magnus’ letter as one of the reasons for changing her mind.

In addition to modifying the marijuana ordinance, the council on Tuesday voted unanimously to place a 5 percent tax on all pot sales before city voters this November. Councilman Butt, who wrote the measure, initially called for a 10 percent tax, but backed off that plan. Both Berkeley and Oakland are planning to let voters decide on similar pot taxes: Berkeley’s would tax medical marijuana sales at 2.5 percent, while Oakland’s would charge 5 percent of all marijuana receipts. Both of those cities are proposing a 10 percent tax on marijuana sold for recreational use, effective only if state voters approve Proposition 19 this November and legalize non-medical marijuana use.

Richmond’s ballot measure will contain no such distinction between medical and recreational marijuana use – rather, it taxes all pot sales equally. Marijuana dispensaries currently pay a 9.75 percent state sales tax on marijuana they sell, although most of that money goes to the state, rather than to the city.

Tuesday’s agenda also called for the council to direct city staffers to draft an ordinance that would regulate and tax large-scale marijuana farms in Richmond, similar to a move Oakland gave final approval to Tuesday. The discussion was cut short, however, when Councilwoman Ludmyrna Lopez moved to have city staff simply investigate the matter and report back for a study session in January. That motion passed 5-2, with Councilmembers Bates and Maria Viramontes opposing.

Clay, the Point Richmond dispensary operator, was clearly upset by the council’s decisions Tuesday. “We got our butts kicked,” he said as he left the chambers.

One of the most repeated pleas from the dozens of medical marijuana users and dispensers on hand Tuesday was for the council to halt the legal orders dispensaries are facing to close up shop. All eight of Richmond’s current dispensaries have been ordered to shut down for operating without a business license (which is currently impossible for a dispensary to obtain). Several representatives for the collectives suggested instead that the city agree to allow the dispensaries to stay open until the new ordinance takes effect.

The council ultimately agreed to meet next week, during the August recess, to discuss the matter in a closed-session meeting. The last time it considered the matter, the council voted 4-3 in closed session to continue its litigation against the dispensaries – although if Tuesday was any indication, nothing relating to marijuana is set in stone just yet.

Just one week after passing its first-ever ordinance regulating medical marijuana dispensaries, the City of Richmond on Tuesday will consider joining Oakland at the cutting edge of pot law.

City Councilman Tom Butt, who last week voiced the strongest opposition to the city’s new plan to grant business licenses to medical pot dispensaries, is now proposing the city craft laws to allow, regulate and tax large-scale medical marijuana growers, similar to a controversial move that neighboring Oakland is also considering.

Oakland’s City Council will vote Tuesday night on whether to allow four large growing facilities within city limits — a move that passed a first reading last week.

In addition to regulating and taxing large-scale pot growers, Butt is also recommending that city council agree to place a measure on the November 2 ballot that would set a 10 percent tax rate for medical pot shops. All new taxes must be voted on in an election.

Currently, Oakland taxes marijuana dispensaries 1.8 percent of their gross receipts, although the city may ask voters to consider a pot tax hike this November, as well. Berkeley is also considering a ballot measure that would tax medical pot at a 2.5 percent rate.

The Nov. 2 ballot will also ask state voters to decide on Measure 19, which would legalize recreational marijuana use.

“It looks like this train is not going to stop,” Butt said of the booming medical marijuana industry. “And if that’s true, I want to make sure Richmond gets all the advantages it can out of going down that route — getting as much tax money we can from these operators.

“If we’re going to do this, we ought to do it comprehensively – not just do the part with the most benefit to the dealers,” Butt added.

Ken Estes, founder of the Grandaddy Purp medical marijuana collective, speaks about his dispensary during the July 20 City Council meeting. Photo by Ian A. Stewart.

Richmond’s City Council still has to pass a second reading of last week’s ordinance. The new rules allow for an unlimited number of medical pot dispensaries in town, as opposed to the initial plan to allow only three. The ordinance, which passed 4-3, does restrict pot shops to parts of town that are zoned for commercial use, and calls for a 1,500-foot buffer between any dispensary and a high school. Dispensaries must also prove their non-profit status, submit to criminal background checks of their managers, and provide adequate security and bookkeeping records.

New medical marijuana dispensaries are also subject to a public hearing process, in which neighbors have a chance to voice concerns to city staff.

It’s unclear how many large-scale marijuana-growing operations there are in Richmond, although Butt suggested that some do already exist.  Richmond is currently home to eight dispensaries, which are facing civil injunctions for operating without proper business permits. The new ordinance will not do anything to change the status of that litigation; rather, all dispensaries will have to submit to the same application process to acquire a new, proper license.

Councilmembers Nat Bates, Jim Rogers, Jeff Ritterman and Mayor Gayle McLaughlin voted in favor of the ordinance last week, while Butt, Ludmyrna Lopez and Maria Viramontes voted against it.

Should the ordinance pass a second reading, city staff would begin accepting applications for marijuana vendor permits within 30 days.

In his weekly e-mail blast, Butt forwarded his followers a letter sent from Richmond Police Chief Chris Magnus that took issue with several aspects of the new dispensary ordinance; primarily, that the city manager’s office (and not the police department, as Magnus recommends) will handle permit applications. Magnus also warned that dispensaries could prove vulnerable targets for crime, given the amount of marijuana and cash that flows in and out of the shops.

“I believe that as a general governing principle, it is better to start with more stringent regulations of a new business model that has the potential to be problematic — and then determine over time if those regulations should be relaxed or otherwise modified,” Magnus wrote. “It is almost impossible to strengthen lax ordinances and laws or reform already established business practices after problems are identified.”

If the council is unable to pass the ordinance’s second reading Tuesday night, the issue will have to be put on ice for a few weeks. Tuesday marks the council’s last regular meeting before breaking for August recess.

By the slimmest of margins, Richmond’s City Council voted Tuesday night to pass a significantly more liberal version of an ordinance regulating medical marijuana dispensaries than originally planned.

The ordinance, which was constantly revised and amended throughout a tense, boisterous and at times comical council session, seeks to regulate how and where medical marijuana can be sold in the city. Despite the fact that Richmond is currently home to eight different pot dispensaries, the city has never formally regulated the suddenly booming business. City prosecutors have been filing cease-and-desist orders over the past several months to many Richmond dispensaries, and seeking civil injunctions against others for operating without a proper vendor’s permit.

The new ordinance, which still needs to make it through a second reading next week, will not limit the number of pot clubs allowed within the city limits — an important and controversial change from the draft ordinance’s original proposal of a three-dispensary limit. The amended ordinance also did away with plans to require dispensaries to be at least 1,000 feet away from each other, and for the police department to oversee the permitting process, instead handing that duty to the city’s administrator.

“I like the idea of having more, smaller dispensaries,” Mayor Gayle McLaughlin said. McLaughlin was joined by councilmembers Nat Bates, Jim Rogers and Jeff Ritterman in supporting the ordinance. Councilmembers Tom Butt, Ludmyrna Lopez and Maria Viramontes opposed.

While the move seemed to please many in the standing-room-only crowd — many of whom spoke on behalf of the city’s dispensaries — it clearly didn’t sit well with everyone on the council.

“What we’re seeing is a move to make Richmond the regional center of [medical marijuana distribution],” Butt said. “At the end of the day, though, it’s just about money and greed. These dispensary owners are being disingenuous, they’re confused, and most of them are carpet-baggers who come to Richmond because they thought they could get their nose under the tent and run their business here.”

Much of the council’s draft ordinance was modeled on a similar pot ordinance passed by the city of Long Beach earlier this year. The ordinance sets limits on where dispensaries can operate: not within a 1,500-foot radius of a high school, or a 500-foot radius of a school housing younger children, a community center or a library. The pot clubs must also be located within an area currently zoned for commercial use.

John Clay, the manager of Point Richmond-based dispensary Pacific Alternative Health Care, addresses City Council Tuesday night. Photo by Ian A. Stewart.

The motion to pass Tuesday’s ordinance beat out an opposing motion favored by councilmembers Lopez and Viramontes, which would have kept intact the limit of three dispensaries, and required the police force to govern the permitting process.

Businesses hoping to obtain one of the Medical Marijuana Collective Permits will have to submit a lengthy application to the city’s administrator, complete with proof of their non-profit status, criminal histories of their managers, and a county health department sign-off if they plan to make pot-laced foods on site.

Thirty days after the ordinance is approved — a second reading should appear before the council next week — businesses can submit their cannabis applications to the city, which will announce public hearings to all property owners within a 750-foot radius of the proposed dispensaries to determine whether or not to grant the permit.

Most members of the audience Tuesday appeared to be supportive of the new guidelines, although John Clay, the manager of Pacific Alternative Health Care, a Point Richmond-based dispensary, remained more tepid in his support.

“I think it’s good,” Clay said of the ordinance. “They could have done a lot worse, certainly. I think it’s decent.”

The ordinance does not include any mention of a special tax on medical cannabis. Oakland reportedly expects to raise around $1.5 million in pot taxes this year via a 1.8 percent sales tax passed last summer, and the Berkeley City Council just placed a measure on the November ballot calling for a 2.5 percent sales tax on medical pot, and a 10 percent tax on recreational pot, should it be legalized by state voters come November.

Meanwhile, many of Richmond’s pot dispensaries are currently facing civil injunctions for operating without a permit. The new ordinance does not appear to have any effect on that litigation, a fact several collective members bemoaned Tuesday. The council had previously voted 4-3 during closed session to continue prosecuting out-of-compliance dispensaries, according to Ritterman.

Richmond’s City Council had originally planned to wait until after November, when the state’s voters will decide whether to legalize recreational marijuana, to consider a marijuana ordinance. Ultimately, though, the council moved forward with the plan as a result of public outcry from medical pot users and providers. The city, which has seen the number of pot collectives grow from around three to as high as 10 over the past year, is relatively late to adopt a pot ordinance, compared to many other Bay Area cities. Oakland first introduced guidelines to selling pot in 1998, with stricter rules passed in 2004. Berkeley first passed a pot ordinance in 1997 and San Francisco has had rules on the books to govern marijuana sales since 2005.

State Proposition 215, passed by voters in 1996, allows residents to legally buy and use marijuana for medical purposes.

Richmond’s lack of formal rules for selling medical marijuana likely caused the sudden rise in pot businesses, according to many dispensary owners and directors. Other businesses driven out of Oakland, San Francisco and other cities after ordinances were passed there may have set up shop in Richmond as well.

Arthur Mijares, a member of the Contra Costa Anti-Marijuana Initiative Task Force, a citizen-run group that holds monthly meetings in Concord, acknowledged that medical marijuana dispensaries have a legal right to sell pot to their members, but questioned the ways that many patients go about obtaining a referral.

“It’s the law now, but that law is being abused,” said Mijares, who was not at Tuesday’s council meeting. “It’s just an open can of worms. Anyone, and I mean anyone, can get a [medical marijuana] card. You just apply and pay your $75 and say, ‘I’ve got headaches or back pain.’ …  The amount of card-carrying cannabis [patients] is way inflated.”

Tuesday’s marijuana debate, which lasted over three hours and seemed to test the patience of every member of the council, was not without its fair share of pothead humor – seemingly a staple of any cannabis-related discourse. But the best line of the night went to Councilman Bates, who, while heaping praise on one of the city’s dispensaries, pointed out, “It’s definitely a green business.”