Q&A
Proactive measures vs. complaint-based enforcement of cannabis regulations
1:28:05
·
3 min
Council Member Williams seeks clarification on the Sheriff's Office's approach to enforcement, particularly regarding proactive measures versus complaint-based actions. Sheriff Miranda elaborates on their processes for identifying and prioritizing enforcement targets.
- The Sheriff's Office primarily acts on complaints referred to them
- They may add locations to their list if observed during other inspections
- Prioritization is based on proximity to sensitive areas like schools and religious institutions
- Special priority is given to cases involving underage sales or health concerns
Nantasha Williams
1:28:05
I appreciate that.
1:28:06
So just make sure I heard you correctly.
1:28:08
Are you saying, like, you you kind of have, like, 2 tracks?
1:28:11
You have maybe folks who are focused on reactively going to assess a particular smoke shop And then you might have a crew a crew of people or just the same crew of people also remaining focused on running down the list of shops you may have regardless of whether or not that particular shop received the complaint that required you to reactively go and potentially enforce.
Anthony Miranda
1:28:39
Anyone put on the list is because we received a complaint.
Anoor Luk
1:28:42
Mhmm.
Anthony Miranda
1:28:43
Okay?
1:28:43
So that means that we're required to go do an inspection and investigate whether that is what's going on at that location.
1:28:50
And so we make sure that we go through the entire list.
1:28:53
And sometimes we do have teams and we send them out to do observations.
1:28:57
We have teams that we go out and to verify the padlock locations that they still remain sealed.
1:29:02
And then we go out and have teams make observations, especially the after hour allegations that people are not operating during during their day hours to confirm that there is activity at the location so that we can adjust it with a different type of operation.
Nantasha Williams
1:29:16
Okay.
1:29:16
And so you don't So do you have any proactive measures, or is it just simply based off of, like, referrals and people telling your office about a particular smoke shop?
1:29:28
So is there so is is there Well, you said the list was garnered by people referring things to you.
1:29:34
So do you have, like, any other list of, like, I don't know, seeing people must have to apply for something within the city for you to be able to say, okay.
1:29:44
We see that this puts particular shop opened up, less proactively go, or is all of your work solely focused on people referring whatever particular complaint to your office?
Anthony Miranda
1:29:55
Primarily complaints referred to the office.
1:29:57
Again, if we're in the street and we're doing an inspection, we observe the location that's not on our list, then we would add that by calling it in ourselves.
1:30:03
So we see that there's cannabis visible at the location.
1:30:07
There's various ways that it can come to our attention, but it has to come to our attention replaced on the list, see what other activity we had it there or not, and then we determine what's the next course of action to take.
Nantasha Williams
1:30:18
Okay.
1:30:19
I think I have, like, one more question just so I can just understand your work a little bit more too.
1:30:24
Is So, okay, let's say you got 10 complaints for 10 different smoke shops.
1:30:30
Maybe 2 of them are in close proximity to a school.
1:30:34
1 is in close proximity to a religious institution, and the others are just randomly scatter.
1:30:39
They may not be in any close proximity to one of those sensitive areas.
1:30:43
Do you prioritize internally?
1:30:46
Like, okay.
1:30:47
These 2 are bias school.
1:30:48
Let's go to that one first.
1:30:49
This one is bias religious institution.
1:30:50
Let's go to that one.
1:30:51
Or how do you figure that out internally?
Anthony Miranda
1:30:55
That's exactly it.
Nantasha Williams
1:30:56
Okay.
Anthony Miranda
1:30:56
Prioritize based on if there are any schools or houses of worship, any details, especially if, again, if somebody gets sick or as reported that there are a number of young adults, like children going into a particular location that sell in cannabis, that they're alleging that there's underage sales in this location, then we will prioritize those locations.
Nantasha Williams
1:31:14
Okay.
1:31:14
Thank you so much.
1:31:15
Thank you, chairs.
