Tag: california

California Senators Approve Bill To Legalize Marijuana Cafes Where People Could Smoke, Eat Food And Watch Events Such As Concerts

A California Senate panel has approved a bill to legalize cannabis cafes in the state, months after the governor vetoed a previous iteration of the proposal.

The Senate Business, Professions and Economic Development Committee passed the legislation in a 9-2 vote on Monday, about three weeks after it cleared the full Assembly.

Assemblymember Matt Haney (D) is again sponsoring the proposal, which would allow on-site marijuana consumption at licensed businesses that could also offer non-cannabis food and non-alcoholic drinks and host live events such as concerts if they get permission from their local government.

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) vetoed the prior version, saying that while he appreciated that the intent was to “provide cannabis retailers with increased business opportunities and an avenue to attract new customers,” he felt “concerned this bill could undermine California’s long-standing smoke-free workplace protections.”

“Protecting the health and safety of workers is paramount,” the governor said at the time. “I encourage the author to address this concern in subsequent legislation.”

Speaking to senators on Monday, Haney clarified that his bill this bill does not legalize consumption lounges but instead would let marijuana businesses add new streams of revenue to those facilities that are already in operation.

“Consumption lounges currently exist throughout the state of California if authorized by the local government, and people are actively consuming cannabis at these lounges,” he said. “However, what is currently not allowed under existing law, completely prohibited, is the ability for cannabis retailers to diversify their business by selling food, drinks and an experience.”

“The cannabis industry is struggling. Issues like an oversaturation, high taxes and a still-thriving black market are hurting cannabis businesses who follow the rules and pay taxes,” Haney said. “By authorizing cannabis retailers to diversify their businesses, we are boosting revenue for California’s small businesses.”

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Thousands of Beloved Joshua Trees to Be Chopped Down in Maniacal CA Solar Energy Push

The Joshua tree. The beloved gnarled California icon—revered by desert aficionados and nature conservationists and considered to be endangered—is nevertheless under assault in a weird twist: environmentalists battling environmentalists.

The tree is held in such high regard by people who love the natural world that supergroup U2 named perhaps their finest album after it, titling their 1987 multi-hit record simply “The Joshua Tree.”

The symbolism was not lost on their fans.

But woke is pitted against woke, as the ancient trees now face the chopping block as the crazed “green energy” crowd is poised to destroy the land and thousands of these ancestral growths:

A renewable energy company will soon begin clearing thousands of protected Joshua trees just outside this desert town, including many thought to be a century old, to make way for a sprawling solar project that will generate power for 180,000 homes in wealthier coastal neighborhoods.

The 2,300-acre project has angered residents of Boron and nearby Desert Lake, two small Kern County towns where the poverty rate is twice the California average. Residents say their concerns about construction dust, as well as the destruction of the mostly pristine land that is habitat for endangered desert tortoises, have been ignored by the county and state officials who approved it.

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California Restaurants Have Slashed 10,000 Jobs Since Democrats Introduced $20 Minimum Wage

Restaurants across the state of California have cut at least 10,000 jobs since Democrat lawmakers mandated a $20 minimum wage, according to a major trade group.

According to the California Business and Industrial Alliance (CABIA), thousands of restaurant workers have lost their positions as businesses are forced to cut labor costs and raise their prices in order to survive.

The New York Post reports:

The California Business and Industrial Alliance (CABIA) slammed  Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom for pushing through the law, which went into effect April 1 – and was blamed for forcing one beloved taco chain to shutter 48 locations in the state last week.

“California businesses have been under total attack and total assault for years,” CABIA president and founder Tom Manzo told Fox Business. “It’s just another law that puts businesses in further jeopardy.”

Several major chains – including McDonald’s, Burger King, and even low-cost favorite In-N-Out Burger – jacked up prices to offset the higher wages. Many had to cut employee hours and some have expedited a move to automation.

Manzo said nearly 10,000 jobs have been cut across fast food restaurants since Newsom signed California Assembly Bill 1287 into law last year, adding that officials were living in a “fantasyland” by thinking that drastic wage increases will help workers or businesses.

Just this week, the beloved restaurant chain Rubio’s Coastal Grill, announced that it would be closing 48 locations statewide due to the unaffordable costs of doing business.

“The closings were brought about by the rising cost of doing business in California,” said a statement from a Rubio’s spokesperson. “While painful, the store closures are a necessary step in our strategic long-term plan to position Rubio’s for success for years to come.”

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Trans prisoner removed from California’s Chowchilla women’s correctional facility after raping female inmate

A trans-identifying male inmate at a California women’s prison has been moved to a men’s prison after being charged with raping a female inmate. Tremaine “Tremayne” Deon Carroll had been housed at the Central California Women’s Facility, located in Chowchilla. 

According to the Daily Mail, Carroll has been charged with two counts of rape and one count of dissuading a witness from testifying. One of Carroll’s alleged victims, Jane Doe, said she was attacked and raped by Carroll in a shower at the jail. 

Doe was in jail serving a short sentence for burglary. Sources close to the case said that Doe had asked prison authorities to change her cell. Doe chose to room with two female inmates and Carroll. Doe said that Carroll began expressing sexual interest when she moved to the cells, allegedly leaving her flirtatious notes and propositioning her on the second day Doe was in the cell. 

Doe said she turned down Carroll’s advances, but a day later she said Carroll attacked her when she was alone in the shower and raped her. Sources told the outlet that Doe was hospitalized and placed in chains during a pelvic exam. She was segregated when released from the hospital and strip-searched because Carroll claimed that Doe was the one that carried out the attack. 

Carroll has since been moved to Kern Valley State Prison, a male facility around two hours away from the women’s facility. 

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‘A Failed Medical School’: How Racial Preferences, Supposedly Outlawed in California, Have Persisted at UCLA

Long considered one of the best medical schools in the world, the University of California, Los Angeles’s David Geffen School of Medicine receives as many as 14,000 applications a year. Of those, it accepted just 173 students in the 2023 admissions cycle, a record-low acceptance rate of 1.3 percent. The median matriculant took difficult science courses in college, earned a 3.8 GPA, and scored in the 88th percentile on the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT).

Without those stellar stats, some doctors at the school say, students can struggle to keep pace with the demanding curriculum.

So when it came time for the admissions committee to consider one such student in November 2021—a black applicant with grades and test scores far below the UCLA average—some members of the committee felt that this particular candidate, based on the available evidence, was not the best fit for the top-tier medical school, according to two people present for the committee’s meeting.

Their reservations were not well-received.

When an admissions officer voiced concern about the candidate, the two people said, the dean of admissions, Jennifer Lucero, exploded in anger.

“Did you not know African-American women are dying at a higher rate than everybody else?” Lucero asked the admissions officer, these people said. The candidate’s scores shouldn’t matter, she continued, because “we need people like this in the medical school.”

Even before the Supreme Court’s landmark affirmative action ban last year, public schools in California were barred by state law from considering race in admissions. The outburst from Lucero, who discussed race explicitly despite that ban, unsettled some admissions officers, one of whom reached out to other committee members in the wake of the incident. “We are not consistent in the way we apply the metrics to these applicants,” the official wrote in an email obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. “This is troubling.”

“I wondered,” the official added, “if this applicant had been [a] white male, or [an] Asian female for that matter, [whether] we would have had that much discussion.”

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Disgraced Professor Sentenced for Action That Could Have Trapped Firefighters in Deadly Blaze

A former college lecturer on “criminal justice issues” is going to get some first-hand experience in the subject after he was sentenced to spend five years and three months in prison on Thursday.

Gary Stephen Maynard had pleaded guilty in January to starting a number of fires in California that could have had much more disastrous results than they did.

Maynard, 49, had formerly lectured at Santa Clara University and Sonoma State University, KCRA reported.

The former lecturer admitted to starting at least four fires in July and August of 2021, according to a Justice Department news release, and pleaded guilty to three counts of arson.

One count of arson was dismissed as part of a plea agreement, according to court records cited by The New York Times.

Maynard was charged with starting fires behind firefighters who were working to contain the Dixie Fire, which eventually destroyed more than 1,000 homes and spread over 1,500 square miles, according to KCRA.

“He intentionally made a dangerous situation more perilous by setting some of his fires behind the men and women fighting the Dixie fire, potentially cutting off any chance of escape,” Phillip A. Talbert, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of California, said in a statement (available in full below).

It eventually grew to become the second-largest fire in California history, according to the outlet.

“Maynard faced the possibility of up to 20 years in prison and a $750,000 fine,” KCRA reported. “Besides the prison sentence of more than five years, he was ordered to pay $13,081 in restitution.”

His attorney argued that Maynard was “suffering from untreated and significant mental health issues when he set the fires and has sought treatment since then,” according to Fox News.

“A Santa Clara University colleague of Mr. Maynard, who was not identified, told the police in October 2020 that Mr. Maynard was struggling with anxiety, depression, split personality, and wanted to kill himself, the complaint said,” according to The Times.

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California Democrat Delivers Impassioned Plea to Toughen Penalties for Pedophiles Buying Sex With Children

In a speech on May 23, California State Senator Susan Eggman made an emotional appeal to her colleagues in the chamber, urging them to support a bill that would send pedophiles who buy sex with children to prison.

The bill, SB 1414, aims to address the state’s outdated laws that currently allow individuals who solicit underage prostitutes to be charged with misdemeanors, resulting in a mere two days in jail.

Senator Eggman, a progressive Democrat who has served in the state legislature for 12 years, expressed her frustration with the current system. “I’m done with us protecting people who would buy and abuse our children. I’m done,” she declared.

The proposed legislation, authored by State Senator Shannon Grove, would make soliciting underage prostitutes a felony punishable by two to four years in prison, a $25,000 fine, and mandatory registration as a sex offender. However, the bill faced opposition from a group of rebel Democrats led by State Senator Scott Wiener, who watered down the bill in the Senate Public Safety Committee.

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Fontana pays nearly $900,000 for ‘psychological torture’ inflicted by police to get false confession

Within hours after Thomas Perez Jr. called police to report his father missing, he found himself in a tiny interrogation room confronted by Fontana detectives determined to extract a confession that he killed his dad.

Perez had told police that his father, 71-year-old Thomas Perez Sr., went out for a walk with the family dog at about 10 p.m. on Aug. 7, 2018. The dog returned within minutes without Perez’s father. Investigators didn’t believe his story, and over the next 17 hours they grilled him to try to get to the “truth.”

According to court records, detectives told Perez that his father was dead, that they had recovered his body and it now “wore a toe tag at the morgue.” They said they had evidence that Perez killed his father and that he should just admit it, records show.

Perez insisted he didn’t remember killing anyone, but detectives allegedly told him that the human mind often tries to suppress troubling memories.

At one point during the interrogation, the investigators even threatened to have his pet Labrador Retriever, Margosha, euthanized as a stray, and brought the dog into the room so he could say goodbye. “OK? Your dog’s now gone, forget about it,” said an investigator.

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Thursday’s Energy Absurdity: In California, the tax-per-mile ‘conspiracy theory’ becomes reality

For several years now, boosters of the failing energy transition have publicly dismissed critics who have speculated that their ultimate goal where transportation is concerned is not merely to shift private car owners to adopt EVs, but to make the cost of owning a car so expensive that all but the most elite in society give up their cars altogether. Anyone reaching that imminently logical conclusion based on the evidence at hand has been dismissed as a ‘conspiracy theorist,’ or something worse.

One easy way to make owning a car increasingly costly would be to tax drivers on a cents-per-mile basis. With EVs replacing some percentage of gas-powered cars, states are finding their slush funds of taxes collected at the gas pump dwindling and are looking for ways to get the revenue flowing again. Some states, like Texas, are doing that with a hefty annual fee on EVs, but taking that route is hard to hide and tends to get hubris-filled EV buyers into a tizzy about having to actually help pay for the roads their extremely heavy vehicles do so much to damage. Go figure.

So, politicians being politicians, many are looking for a way to do this that’s somewhat easier to hide and seems “fair,” at least on the surface. For this reason, we now see the politicians and regulators in California (because of course it’s in California – where else?) now running tests on assessing a new tax based on miles driven each year.

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California wants the EPA to allow the state to mandate electric trains that don’t actually exist

California was a leader in mandating electric vehicle sales, and then it moved to electrify trucking. Now, if the Environmental Protection Agency grants the state a requested waiver needed to implement the rule, California will mandate that train locomotives be fully electric starting in 2030. 

Should the EPA give the rule its blessing, rail companies will have a hard time coming into compliance since locomotives that can meet the mandates don’t actually exist. 

Prototype

In November, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) passed regulations that would require all freight trains to be in a zero-emission configuration by 2035. By 2030, the rule mandates that diesel locomotives that are 23 years or older be retired, even though a locomotive can have a useful life of 39 years or longer. New passenger locomotives by 2030 will need to operate at zero emissions, and long-haul freight trains using new engines will need to be zero emission by 2035. 

Wabtec makes a battery-electric locomotive that uses regenerative braking, which returns some charge to the battery while the train is slowing down. The locomotive runs on 18,000 lithium-ion battery cells, producing 8.5 megawatt hours of electricity. For comparison, a Tesla Model Y with the smallest battery configuration runs on a .06 megawatt hour charge. 

According to a promotion video on the prototype, the Wabtec train has comparable hauling power of a diesel locomotive. However, the company explains that the locomotive is meant to be part of a hybrid system, meaning it runs in tandem with diesel-powered locomotives. Over a three-month trial in California, the system reduced the average fuel consumption of the train by 11%. 

The model would therefore not meet California’s 2035 mandates.

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