On Jan. 11, someone knocked on the door of Bruce Rossignol's 13th Street
home. The investment banker turned medical cannabis cultivator, who,
Weekly
reported in August
wishes to someday open a cannabis club in North Beach, assumed it
was his landlord.
He was wrong.
At the door were a
dozen officers from the San Francisco Police Department, narcotics
officers from the Drug Enforcement Administration, and officers with
the San Mateo County Narcotics Task Force. They raided the
sophisticated cultivation operation on which Rossignol had spent an
ungodly sum of time and money.
Cops
smashed his grow equipment and then seized cash and an unknown
amount of marijuana.
That's a bummer
— and one that could have been avoided with a single phone call.
Rossignol, a medical cannabis patient who says his
operation was truly legal, has a dispensary permit
application pending with the Department of Public Health. But
the SFPD didn't bother contacting regulators until the day after
the
raid, according to the police report.